Pricier chicken coming to a store near you

By Bob Burgdorfer

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. consumers can add chicken to the list of foods that will cost more this year.

Prices on everything from soup to nuts have moved higher as food companies pass on to consumers sharply higher costs for grain, meat, and fuel.

Chief executives at the two largest U.S. chicken companies said on Thursday that chicken prices must go higher to offset the industry's higher production costs.

A swift rise in the price of corn, a major feed stock, has been particularly troublesome.

Chicken companies have been unable to raise chicken prices fast enough to offset the higher feed costs, Richard Bond, chief executive at Tyson Foods Inc, said on Thursday.

"We have attained some (higher) pricing but not at the same pace as our inputs have increased, especially in chicken. The lag of higher priced corn is just now coming through the products that we are taking to market," Bond said during his webcast presentation at the BMO Capital Markets agriculture and protein conference in New York City.

Tyson is the largest U.S. meat company and the second largest U.S. chicken producer. Feed costs for the company should be $600 million higher this fiscal year than the previous year, said Bond.

Corn prices have soared to a record $6.50 per bushel this year amid strong demand from exporters, livestock and chicken producers, and the makers of the biofuel ethanol.