Anyone spending the holidays in the Dominican Republic can expect the festive table staple — roast chicken — to be plentiful and affordable. Eddy Alcántara, who heads the country's consumer protection agency Pro Consumidor, says national poultry output is more than enough to cover the Christmas surge, with no shortage risk on the horizon.
The numbers back him up. Chicken has held a steady price of roughly RD$79 to RD$84 per pound in markets and supermarkets for the past ten months, a rarity at a time when food costs elsewhere have been jumpy. The Dominican Association of Poultry Producers (ADA) expects about 25 million birds to hit the market during the holiday season, plus around two million frozen chickens held in cold storage as a buffer.
That capacity reflects a sector that has grown fast. Government figures show the country averaged 21.8 million chickens produced per month in 2025, and December output alone reached 25.2 million units — figures President Luis Abinader himself has presented. Officials have also ruled out supply problems for pork, the other centrepiece of a Dominican Christmas meal, so the traditional Nochebuena spread looks safe.
Beyond the festive reassurance, the government points to support measures that help producers sell their birds and absorb losses when production peaks — one reason prices have stayed flat even as December demand climbs.
For travellers, this is a small but welcome detail if you're heading to Punta Cana, Santo Domingo or the north coast over the holidays. Christmas and New Year are peak season in the Dominican Republic, and local food costs feed directly into restaurant and hotel menus. A stable, well-supplied poultry sector means your festive dinner — whether pollo horneado at a family-run comedor or a resort banquet — shouldn't carry a holiday markup driven by scarcity. It's also a good sign of general food security in a country that welcomes millions of visitors each December.
If you're in Santo Domingo for the season, it's worth eating where locals do: roast chicken with moro, pasteles en hoja and a glass of ponche are the real taste of a Dominican Christmas, and this year the supply is locked in. Full details come via Dominican Today.
