The Chicken Of Tomorrow | Animals | Forums

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My grandparents couldn’t resist a roasted chicken.

They had heated debates about the superiority of supermarket quality versus big box store, both of which they frequented in pursuit of the ubiquitous pre-cooked poultry. But they acted like each one, identically packaged in a clear plastic top and black base, priced around $12.99, was an occasion within itself — certainly one with the power to lure their only granddaughter over for dinner. I went, but I assure you, it wasn’t for the roasted chicken, which I considered a last resort in my own family’s refrigerator.

Why was a roasted chicken so special to them, and totally unremarkable to me? Our reactions highlight more than just a generation gap, but disparate American experiences — one that came before the “Chicken of Tomorrow” contest, and one that came after.

In 1948, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, or A&P, sponsored this national event to give the world a better chicken. A&P was then the largest supermarket in America, a pioneer in the high-volume, low-cost food chain model. Just three years earlier, the U.S. Justice Department had convicted the supermarket chain of criminal restraint of trade, but that verdict came far too late for all the Mom and Pop stores that A&P had put out of business. It didn’t really hurt A&P either, but they saw the contest as a PR stunt with a real cost-to-benefit ratio. A&P was the country’s largest poultry retailer, and chicken had been one of the few unrationed proteins during WWII. They wanted to continue to grow the poultry market, and this goal was shared by the USDA, who would become A&P’s official partner in the Chicken of Tomorrow contest.

It was an alliance with a specific goal: The “development of superior meat-type chickens.” The winning chicken would have broader-breasts, bigger drumsticks, plumper thighs, and above all, more white meat. And they would grow faster, too, so that the consumer would eventually come to depend on the bird as a reliable kitchen staple.

The contest captured the interest of farmers across the nation, who had almost exclusively used chickens for egg production. If chickens were eaten on the family farm, it was usually after their laying days were behind them, and even then, they were reserved for a special family dinner — hence my Michigan-born grandparent’s enthusiasm. They fed their laying hens slowly, which would never yield the high feed-to-weight conversion the emerging modern broiler industry was really after.

After several cycles, each of the 40 finalists submitted 720 eggs to a central hatching facility, where the chicks were raised in controlled conditions and fed a standard diet. For 12 weeks, their weight, health and appearance were closely monitored, and at the conclusion, the survivors were slaughtered and judged.

The Chicken of Tomorrow contest boasted exhibitions and offered tours as well, but there was more to see than carcasses hanging from hooks. The A&P and the USDA wanted the get the public excited about eating more chicken, which they prepared for various dinners during the finals, in addition to sponsoring concerts, dances, a parade and a rodeo. There was even a Chicken of Tomorrow Queen, a blonde beauty who appeared in the 1948 documentary, smiling and waving from her carriage in Georgetown — a procession sponsored by the Delmarva Poultry Industry.

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