The US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) in Canada forecasts chicken meat production to grow 2% in 2027 to 1.515 million tonnes, according to its most recent poultry report for Canada.
FAS expects retail and foodservice demand to remain solid, supported by competitive chicken prices against other animal proteins, while population growth is sluggish. The foodservice sector, especially quick-service restaurants, is expected to keep contributing to demand, as customer traffic is resilient and drawn by new menu items.
FAS estimates 2026 production at 1.485 million tonnes, up 2.4% from 2025. The sector missed production targets throughout 2026, largely because of an undersupply of day-old chicks. Lower egg hatchability and higher chick mortality, both consequences of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks, caused the shortfall. Ambitious quota allocation volumes had signalled that producers were raising production to meet market requirements.
Broiler meat accounts for more than 97% of Canada’s chicken meat market, with the balance mostly spent fowl, also called stewing or mature hens. Under supply management, poultry farmers are not vertically integrated into processing. Many independent, often small family farms supply live birds to processors.
Production is tightly controlled through a quota system. Representatives of chicken producers, processors, further-processors and the foodservice sector make production decisions jointly, considering indicators such as imports, stocks, sales, prices, competing protein prices, world production conditions, feed prices and exchange rates.
Every eight-week production cycle, Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC), established in 1979 under the Farm Products Agencies Act, sets the national production volume. This is allocated to the ten producing provinces, where provincial organisations allocate quota to individual producers based on their share of the total.
Prices that farmers receive for live birds vary by province and are typically set using a cost of production formula. The two major input costs are feed and day-old chicks. The system, based on production controls and cost-based pricing, aims to insulate farmers from fluctuating input costs and stabilise farm income.