Why Can Chicken Feet Become a "National Snack"?

AI Question: How did chicken feet transform from scraps into a billion-dollar industry?

The recent March 15th evening event spotlighted a familiar snack—chicken feet.

When words like “dirty and messy production workshops,” “hydrogen peroxide bleaching,” and “annual sales exceeding one billion” hit consumers’ ears, many “bite enthusiasts” felt a mix of anger at unscrupulous businesses and nostalgia for the soft, tender, bone-free chicken feet that melt in your mouth, or the tangy, spicy kick of pickled pepper chicken feet.

Behind these complex emotions lies a more interesting question: Why do Chinese people love eating chicken feet so much?

In Western culinary culture, chicken feet are often categorized as “pet food” or “cheap waste.” But in China, they are called “phoenix claws” and have undergone a glamorous transformation from scraps to a national snack.

According to data from consulting firm Guanyan Tianxia, in 2022, China’s phoenix claw industry market size was 43.204 billion yuan, with approximately 564,500 tons sold—an increase of 194,500 tons compared to 2018.

iMedia Research’s “2023 China Boneless Chicken Feet Consumer Market Study” shows that in 2023, the online market size for boneless chicken feet reached 4.98 billion yuan, a 16.5% year-over-year increase. By 2028, the market is expected to reach 7.76 billion yuan.

The Chinese obsession with chicken feet is not a fleeting trend but a 3,000-year-old culinary heritage.

The “Lüshi Chunqiu” records: “When King Qi eats chicken, he must eat its feet; after thousands, he is satisfied.” Here, “feet” refers to chicken feet. It means that King Qi must eat chicken feet when eating chicken, and he won’t stop until he’s eaten thousands.

What makes chicken feet so attractive?

In some ways, chicken feet are the perfect food carrier—they can be tender and flavorful when steamed with black bean sauce in Cantonese dim sum; spicy and crunchy as a Sichuan or Chongqing late-night snack; rich and savory in braised chicken feet at street food stalls; or coated in sweet and spicy sauce in Korean cuisine.

Their irreplaceable texture makes chicken feet a “natural saint” in the snack world.

Chicken feet lack abundant meat, consisting mainly of skin, tendons, and bones, but this is precisely its charm. For “bite enthusiasts,” that piece between the tendons and skin—the “palm treasure”—offers a complex texture: soft and sticky with a Q弹 (chewy bounce), with a crispness that no lean meat can match. This subtle sense of fullness—“eating but feeling like you haven’t”—and the intricate interplay of meat, tendons, and bones perfectly align with Chinese culinary preferences. The slow, small bites also serve as a stress-relief for young people.

Because of this, many snack companies have targeted chicken feet. Yyou Food produces “pickled pepper chicken feet,” while online star Wang Xiao Lu gained fame with “Tiger Skin Chicken Feet.” According to You Food, the first in the pickled pepper chicken feet sector, in the first half of 2025, the company achieved revenue of 771 million yuan, with nearly 400 million yuan from pickled pepper chicken feet.

This beloved delicacy, deeply connected to Chinese sentiment, now faces an unprecedented trust crisis.

Due to domestic chicken feet production being far below demand, China imports大量 frozen chicken feet annually. As market demand surges and raw material prices rise, the prices of finished products have skyrocketed. In supermarkets, a few tiger skin chicken feet can sell for dozens of yuan—almost as much as beef—earning the nickname “chicken foot assassin” online.

The exposé on March 15th revealed the darker side: instead of being a tasty treat, some chicken feet in unscrupulous factories are soaked in chemical raw materials, turning into “poisonous substances.”

This warning is not meant to make consumers give up chicken feet but to urge the industry to shed its reckless growth. Hopefully, one day, consumers will enjoy chicken feet solely for their flavor, without worrying about chemical residues or “whitening” processes. After all, what should excite Chinese palates is the spicy, sour, and savory taste, not the chemical residues of hydrogen peroxide.

Remember, once trust is bleached away, it can never be restored.

(More tips and reports, please contact the author: Yanshuxin at yanshuxin@chinanews.com.cn) (Chinanews App)

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