(Photo by Benedikt Koehler via Flickr)

(Photo by Benedikt Koehler via Flickr)

Burgers enjoyed a boom in 2014 with Americans ordering 9 billion of them, a 3 percent hike over 2013 and the first increase in five years.

A hamburger is a sandwich that consists of a round patty of ground beef–which is either fried or grilled–served on a bun or a roll. Hamburgers are often garnished with various condiments including cheese, lettuce, onions, ketchup and mustard.

The burger’s main competition when it comes to sandwiches is grilled chicken, which had a bad year; servings of chicken sandwiches fell 9 percent to 1.3 billion.

On average, every man, woman and child in the United States ordered a burger in a restaurant about every two weeks in 2014, according to The NPD Group.

“The success of burgers in 2014 was a combination of factors,” said Kim McLynn of NPD in an email. “Quick service restaurant chains launched new burger items, casual dining restaurants added more burger items to the menu to offset higher beef costs, and Americans simply love their burgers.”

Most of those burgers were sold at fast food places like McDonald’s. Fifty-one percent of orders at quick service hamburger restaurants in 2014 included a burger.  

Despite the demand for burgers, Americans are still more likely to order some other kind of sandwich at a restaurant, according to NPD. The sandwich category, which includes subs and other hot and cold sandwiches, totaled 12.4 billion servings.

However, the NPD figures don’t include all the hamburgers Americans grill at home.

According to the beef industry, the average American eats three hamburgers a week, for a national total of nearly 50 billion burgers per year.