---
title: "Why Aren't Chicken Nuggets Popular Anymore?"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/b8238b78-b5b7-4879-a491-90f71b2231a8
source: "1851 Franchise"
original_url: https://1851franchise.com/why-arent-chicken-nuggets-popular-anymore-2709453
category: "Chicken"
industry: "Restaurants"
segment: "Chicken"
published: 2019-03-19T20:15:01.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T02:32:22.901Z
image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/549e3a7adefe0b241ea5b129895e6f989216.jpg
---

# Why Aren't Chicken Nuggets Popular Anymore?

**TL;DR:** Chicken nuggets have declined in popularity, with Americans eating 2.3 billion servings in restaurants last year. The item has begun disappearing from menus, possibly due to the 'pink slime' debacle of 2012 and competition from chicken strips and fingers.

*originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2019-03-19. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/why-arent-chicken-nuggets-popular-anymore-2709453).*

## Story

Chicken nuggets used to be prom kings. Now, they’re sitting alone at lunch. While Americans ate 2.3 billion servings of nuggets in restaurants last year, the item has begun declining in popularity and disappearing from menus, according to a recent story by CNBC. But why?

CNBC reports that while conducting an informal poll in Times Square, “no one knew exactly what is in a chicken nugget.” Perhaps the childhood favorite hasn’t recovered from the since-debunked “pink slime” debacle of 2012. Maybe the food item has been backed into a corner of stagnation, unable to update what it means for chicken to be a nugget. After all, competition like chicken strips and chicken fingers have a more sophisticated reputation in addition to a higher profit margin.

“I don’t really see how they’re going to make a comeback in the future because it’s not a product that most restaurants, especially in fast food, drive their innovation around,” said Dean Small, CEO of Synergy Restaurant Consultants in the article. “Chicken nuggets are an incremental purchase, it’s like an add-on.”

## Entities

- 1851 Franchise (publication)
- Restaurants (sector)
- fast food (topic)
- menu trends (topic)
- chicken nuggets (topic)
- food popularity (topic)

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Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/why-arent-chicken-nuggets-popular-anymore-2709453). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/b8238b78-b5b7-4879-a491-90f71b2231a8).