Delmarva Chicken Festival

The Delmarva Chicken Festival is an annual event sponsored by Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc started in 1949 with the purpose of publicizing the Delmarva Peninsula with an emphasis on its arguably most important agricultural enterprise, raising chickens.

The two-day event hosted in various locales on Delmarva features trade shows, arts and crafts, carnival, entertainment, and food concessions. Chicken is, of course, the featured food, but french fries, corn-on-the-cob, funnel cake, ice cream, kettle corn, and fresh-squeezed lemonade are other local favorites. Nearly three tons of chicken are cooked each year in the world's largest frying pan. The pan made its debut at the second annual festival in 1950. The first and original pan was used and made by the Mumford Sheet Metal Company in Selbyville, Delaware. It was ten feet in diameter and had an eight-foot handle, weighed 650 pounds and could hold 800 chicken quarters. The 71st Annual Delmarva Chicken Festival took place in mid-June 2020 in Centreville, Maryland, United States on a scaled-down basis caused by COVID-19 pandemic.