The Best Grocery Stores for Buying Chicken, According to a Butcher

Luckily for all of us, these two chains have hundreds of locations.

Liz Provencher

Mon, March 16, 2026 at 12:01 PM UTC

5 min read

Key Points

Chicken is the most-consumed protein in the United States, but not every grocery store has a stellar selection of this meat.
We asked professional butcher Judy Yao which grocery chains she recommends buying chicken at if you don't have access to an independent butcher shop.
Yao recommends two major supermarkets, where you'll find high-quality chicken at reasonable prices.

To say chicken is a staple in the United States is an understatement. This protein is the most consumed meat in the country, thanks to its versatility, appeal to children and adults alike, and relative affordability. As a commonplace ingredient, this meat may easily become an afterthought, but you can seek out high-quality chicken to make any meal better. Just like steak and fish, some chicken offers better flavor and value if you know what to look for.

Butcher shops typically provide more transparency around where meat comes from and how fresh it is, but even experts like Judy Yao, a professional butcher and the head of e-commerce at Savenor's Butchery , recognize that it's not always possible to visit an independent store. "We don't always live next to a nice butcher, and occasionally you need to make a quick run to a grocery store in a pinch," she says.

We asked the professional, who's appeared on an episode of Chopped that celebrated female butchers, which grocery store chains offer the best quality chicken for cooking at home. Here are Yao's picks for the best supermarkets for buying chicken, plus some of her tips to find high-quality, cost-effective packages of chicken at any store.

What is the best grocery store for buying chicken?

For Yao, there are two stores that come to mind when considering which supermarkets have standout selections for chicken. The butcher explains that "Whole Foods has a pretty good sourcing process. They usually have Bell & Evans chicken, for example, and other chickens that would be antibiotic-free… You can usually find good quality stuff at Wegmans. I think the big chain stores typically do have options. They typically have air-chilled chicken and at least one option for organic chicken."

A wider range of options — one that has multiple brands and levels of quality designation — is a green flag when shopping for chicken. It increases the chances that some products will be certified organic or sport other positive characteristics that Yao looks for. "The larger chain stores normally have more variety, so you can usually find options with indicators of high-quality chicken," she says.

Whole Foods has more than 500 locations across the U.S., while Wegmans boasts 114 stores in eight states. In addition to offering a diverse range of stock, these stores tend to buy meat in extremely large quantities, resulting in prices that help you stick to your grocery budget for the month.

How to buy the best chicken at the grocery store

From antibiotic-free and hormone-free to natural and organic, the terms used to label chicken at the grocery store can easily become dizzying for consumers, Yao says.

Many of these marketing phrases are designed to make you buy a particular package of chicken, and as a result, some can be misleading. The descriptors "hormone-free" or "no added hormones" are redundant, because the USDA has banned companies from using hormones since the 1950s, the butcher explains. "Pasture-raised" doesn't usually hold much significance either, because, per Yao, "It really just means they have access to pasture, but it's not like this idyllic picture of all the chickens in a beautiful field."

With so many ineffective quality descriptors out there, Yao suggests that the number one word to look for on a package of good chicken is a term many consumers are already familiar with: organic. "Luckily, it is very strict to get the organic label," she details. "The feed needs to be organic. It covers good animal husbandry. So that's a pretty good label for chicken you can feel good about."

In addition to choosing organic chicken, Yao recommends looking for poultry that is labeled "air-chilled." Instead of being cooled down with chlorinated water, air-chilled chicken is stored in a cold, open-air environment, resulting in meat that tastes fresher and has more flavor. She notes that it also indicates a processing facility is likely clean and uses careful production practices.

"It's not 100% foolproof, but combine air-chilled labeling and those specific certifications that we can trust, and it's a good way to cover your bases," the butcher recommends.

What to look for when buying chicken:

Organic
Air-chilled
A wide range of quality designations and brand options

Which grocery store offers the least expensive organic chicken?

Many of us are familiar with the feeling of dread as we watch the total on the grocery store cash register creep higher and higher with each item that's scanned. To limit anxiety and help keep your grocery bill down, we compared prices for organic chicken at six major grocery chains, so you don't have to sacrifice quality to cut costs.

Prices will vary somewhat by store location, but Yao's picks of Whole Foods and Wegmans typically sell their own brand of organic boneless, skinless chicken breast for around $7.99 per pound and $8.69 per pound, respectively. Those prices are competitive on a national scale; Kroger's organic chicken breast costs roughly $8.99 per pound, while Walmart offers organic chicken breast for $6.75 per pound.

If you're looking for the absolute best deal on organic chicken, bulk retailers have you covered. Costco's six-pound packages of organic chicken breast come out to just $4.74 per pound, and Sam's Club has organic chicken breast for $5.93 per pound.

To access even better prices, opt for bone-in chicken. Wegmans sells a family-sized pack of organic, air-chilled drumsticks — one of the most affordable cuts of chicken — for just $2.89 per pound, proving that you don't need to splurge in order to take advantage of the high-quality proteins these stores offer.

Read the original article on Food & Wine