The Clever Reason Grocery Store Rotisserie Chickens Are Cheaper Than Raw Ones

It's impossible to ignore the display of hot, juicy rotisserie chickens at the grocery store. Their mouthwatering scent lures you toward the deli like a siren's song, where their crispy, golden-brown skin promises an effortless, delicious dinner; Just choose your favorite of the countless recipes for store-bought rotisserie chicken. But — defying the logic that it's always more frugal to avoid premade foods and, instead, buy whole ingredients — the cooked birds are actually cheaper than fresh chickens. PBS compared three grocery stores in California and found that, in every case, rotisserie chickens were around 30 percent less expensive than buying a whole chicken from the meat case. Why is this?

Some say that rotisserie chickens are simply loss leaders designed to get you in the door and shopping for all sorts of things, but that's not the whole story. The truth lies in the obscure science of grocery store economics. Just like grocery stores play music to get you to spend more money, it's also been concluded that it is better to cook and sell a whole chicken that's about to expire, rather than throw it out. Yup, you read that right: Most grocery store rotisserie chickens are former raw chickens that were about to hit their sell-by dates, and are then repurposed through cooking. 

Supermarkets often implement creative tactics to avoid food waste. Grocery stores use old produce for the salad bar, for instance. And, as for those rotisserie chickens that don't land on a dinner plate within a few hours? They are again repurposed and sold as chicken salad, extending their usefulness even longer. 

ReFED, a nonprofit that combats food waste, determined that grocery retailers generated 4.45 million tons of food waste in 2023, over 13% of which was fresh meat or seafood. Some of this was due to mishandling or labeling mixups, but a lot was because of spoilage. With studies showing Americans throw out an estimated $408 billion in food per year, you can imagine all the ways in which those wasted groceries and resources could have been better utilized.

It's both smart and budget-minded for grocery stores to combat the amount of food that gets thrown away. A rotisserie chicken may sell for less than a fresh, whole chicken, but that's still better than losing money on it as discard. Plus, that chicken is more likely to be consumed in its cooked form, which cuts back on food waste and its accompanying ethical and economic setbacks. Next time you're at the store, pick up a rotisserie chicken and do a whole world of good.