What is Air-Chilled Chicken?

More and more, retailers and restaurants are offering “Air-Chilled Chicken” to consumers.  What is air-chilling, exactly? Here’s the simple answer:

Chicken is either air-chilled or water-chilled the moment it is killed at the processing plant. For safety, the most important thing is to immediately get the temperature of the chicken down to a safe level so that the rest of the process can be done.

Either the chicken is placed in a cold water bath to do this (water-chilling), or it has cold air blown onto it (air-chilling).