History

The 1948 "Chicken of Tomorrow" Contest and How It Shaped the Broiler Industry

Field guide · Updated October 13, 2026 · about 3 min read

Almost every supermarket chicken in the world has an ancestor that competed in a 1940s breeding contest. The "Chicken of Tomorrow" program, run by the A&P grocery chain with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, set out to breed a meatier chicken — and succeeded beyond what its organizers could have imagined.

Why the contest was created

The contest's aim, according to the papers of the National Chicken-of-Tomorrow Committee held at the USDA National Agricultural Library, was to encourage meat-type poultry breeders to develop a better, more efficient broiler.

There was also a public-relations motive. Wikipedia's account notes that the A&P grocery chain had been convicted by the U.S. Justice Department in 1945 of criminal restraint of trade, and that the contest was started partly to improve the company's image.

How it worked

The program ran in stages: state contests began in 1946, regional contests followed in 1947, and the national final took place in 1948. Entrants sent hatching eggs to purpose-built facilities, where the chicks were raised under controlled, identical conditions. Growth and health were monitored for 12 weeks; then the birds were slaughtered, weighed and judged on the edible meat they produced. Forty finalists from the regional rounds competed for the national title.

The national final was held at the University of Delaware Agricultural Experiment Station, and in June 1948 a parade in Georgetown, Delaware celebrated the event. Records held by the National Agricultural Library show that the program continued in some form after 1948, with rules for contests through 1951 and original performance records from a 1951 national contest.

The winners

Saglio later crossed his White Rocks with Vantress's Red Cornish birds, creating the Arbor Acres line, and built his family farm into a leading poultry breeding company. Genetics from that line are found on poultry farms around the world, and Wikipedia notes that most broiler chickens worldwide — including the widely used Cobb 500 — descend from birds in the contest.

The 1948 film

The contest was promoted in a short documentary, The Chicken of Tomorrow (1948), directed by Patrick Allen and narrated by Lowell Thomas, and associated with Texaco (then The Texas Company). The Internet Archive's copy runs about 17 minutes and describes the film as showing "how scientific agriculture changes the life and taste of the chicken": incubators full of eggs, chicks hatching and being sexed, free-range flocks, egg gathering, a chicken auction and a side-by-side comparison labeled "The Chicken of Today" and "The Chicken of Tomorrow." The film is in the public domain and free to watch at the Internet Archive. It later gained a second life when it was mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

The effect on broiler chickens

The contest was one step in a long acceleration. Industry statistics compiled by the National Chicken Council from USDA and other data show how much the broiler changed:

In other words, a modern broiler reaches more than twice the 1950 weight in about two-thirds of the time, on far less feed per pound. The table shows long-run industry change, not the effect of the contest alone; what the contest left behind is the genetic foundation — most of today's broilers descend from its birds.

Why it matters for backyard keepers

Today's meat chickens and today's egg chickens are very different birds. Commercial broilers descend largely from the contest's winning lines, while commercial egg production relies on layers such as the Single Comb White Leghorn, which Oregon State Extension says averages about 265 eggs a year. Oregon State notes that backyard breeds generally lay fewer. For more on how laying hens age, see how long hens keep laying.