The holidays are a bad time to be a turkey. The National Turkey Council estimates that more than 200 million turkeys were consumed in the United States last year, with more than half of them eaten on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. But if you think the turkeys have a bad time of it, try being a chicken.

Nearly 22 million chickens are consumed each day in the U.S. alone, with more than 50 billion of the birds consumed globally each year. Baked, broiled, stir fried or prepared any other way you can think of, chicken is expected to beat out pork as the most consumed meat in the world by 2020. A major reason for that is cost; according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, chicken costs an average $1.55 per pound while pork will run you about $4.61.

Religion is another, though often less considered, reason why chicken consumption is exploding. By 2030, the world’s Muslim population is expected increase by about 35% to 2.2 billion as compared to 1.6 billion in 2010. That’s an annual growth rate of 1.5%, while the world’s non-Muslim population is expected to grow by just 0.7%, with Muslims accounting for an estimated 26.4% of the global population by the end of the next decade. Why does that matter? Like Judaism, Islam prohibits the consumption of pork.

Chicken or the Egg

There are a number of ways that investors can profit from the huge popularity of chicken, with several companies that process and sell the bird for the table.

Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN) and Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL) are both involved in chicken processing, but that is just a small part of their overall businesses. They both also provide a variety of other meats and even prepared and packaged foods, so an investment there encompasses a wide array of factors. Still, revenue growth at Tysons has averaged 5.2% over the past three years while earnings per share growth comes in at 6.4%. Revenue growth at Hormel has averaged 6.6% over the same period with EPS up an annual average of 10.1%. Wall Street analysts expect EPS to grow between 8% and 10% over the next five years.

Jim Fink, the chief investment strategist at our small-cap advisory Roadrunner Stocks, has found a company which is a pure play on growing chicken consumption.

The third-largest chicken producer in the U.S., Sanderson Farms (NSDAQ: SAFM) has gotten a boost from skyrocketing beef and pork prices over the past couple of years even as its feed prices have been falling. It’s not often that a company sees favorable demand growth even as its cost of production is falling. That’s resulted in the company’s operating margin shooting up from just 4% in 2012 to 7.7% last year. It’s expected to hit nearly 12% when full-year 2014 results are reported.

With margins expanding so rapidly, Jim expects Sanderson’s earnings to hit a new record high this year with EPS forecast to reach $10.76. Amazingly though, while the stock is up by more than 30% so far this year, it’s still an attractive value proposition. Despite the fact that the company’s earnings are growing more than twice as fast as Tyson Foods, Sanderson Farms is trading at just 9.8 times one-year forward earnings while Tyson is commanding a multiple of 12.4 and the S&P 500 is at 18 times forward earnings.

Jim sees a lot of upside for the company for two reasons. The first is that fact that with exports making up less than 11% of total sales, there’s a lot of potential growth there. For instance, China is the second largest producer of poultry and eggs in the world, but it isn’t able to keep up with domestic demand so it is actually a net importer of chicken. It bought more than $416 million worth of fowl from the U.S. last year and that number is only expected to grow over the next several years.

Another major upside catalyst that Jim points out is the fact that Sanderson Farms could be a takeover target. Last year a major Chinese pork processer purchased Smithfield Foods for $4.7 billion and Brazilian meat producer JBS tried to buy out Hillshire Brands, though Tyson Foods won out on that deal. Between June 2008 and June 2013, Chinese and Brazilian buyers made more than 91% of all meat industry acquisitions, spending more than $20 billion. With a market cap of just more than $2 billion, Sanderson Farms would be a fairly cheap purchase while providing a significant production bump for any potential bidder.

More Small Cap Bargains

Sanderson Farms isn’t the only small-cap bargain Jim has found, covering dozens of both value and growth stocks in his Roadrunner Stocks Advisory. His momentum portfolio has racked up an average total return of 13.6% while his Small Cap Value portfolio is up by nearly 29%, with plenty more gains ahead.