“Chicken continues to take up valuable space on the Brazilian dinner table”—Explaining the Brazilian Urban Chicken Boom of the 1990s

Abstract

This article examines the rapid increase of chicken consumption in Brazilian cities in the 1990s. It is based on articles from the magazine Aves & Ovos, published by the Association of Chicken Producers of São Paulo between 1990 and 2000, and qualitative interviews with customers and producers that I conducted in Curitiba in 2023. The magazine featured key chicken industry players discussing global and national political and social developments and their relevance to the chicken consumption. In this way, the magazine provides an insight into the most important changes in the eating habits of urban consumers. This article looks at how chicken appealed to different consumers, the role of the state in these developments, and what motivated people to incorporate chicken into their daily diets. The influence of global factors is evident, whereby the diverse characteristics of the case study of Brazil and the important role of local actors in the establishment of urban mass consumption are foregrounded.