Why Are Grocery Store Rotisserie Chickens So Much Cheaper Than Raw?

We're certainly not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, but sometimes you have to ask yourself a few questions. Consider the wonder of the modern world: the grocery store rotisserie chicken. Despite the fact that it's already been seasoned, cooked, packaged, and kept warm for you, these chickens are usually less expensive than a raw bird you would buy and cook yourself. While we're in no hurry to ask supermarkets to charge us more, we can't help but wonder: how do they profit from this? Well, a lot of the time, they don't because profit isn't the point — the rotisserie chickens are supposed to be a low-cost way to entice shoppers into buying other stuff.

For many companies, including Costco, which loses up to $30 to $40 million a year on the birds, rotisserie chickens are what is known as a "loss leader." That means the company expects to lose money producing them but does so anyway because it provides other benefits. If you go to the store to buy an easy, readymade rotisserie chicken for dinner, chances are you won't leave with just the chicken. Maybe you'll poke your head into the frozen food aisle to get some tater tots to go with your poultry. Maybe you'll pick up some cookies from the bakery section for dessert. Maybe you'll buy the ingredients for tomorrow's dinner, like Anthony Bourdain's beef bourguignon recipe, which you're totally going to cook this time. Either way, both you and the supermarket end up satisfied.

That's not the only reason why stores produce so many rotisserie chickens, though. Not only are they cheap and easy to make, but they're quite useful — if they aren't bought by the customer, they can be repurposed into chicken salad for the deli section. Just be careful: If too many birds sit untouched beneath the heat lamps, that could be a sign your store doesn't make a good rotisserie chicken.

Repurposing goes both ways, as well. If you're wondering what makes the rotisserie chickens different from the raw birds your store offers, chances are good that there isn't really a difference. Grocery stores often use raw chickens approaching their expiration date for rotisserie chickens. So if you ever go through the meat aisle, letting your eyes linger on a raw chicken but you know you don't quite have it in you to cook that week, take solace in the fact that you might see it again next week, waiting hot and ready in that clamshell package.