Blame the Bird for More Expensive Thanksgiving Meal

WASHINGTON, DC – According to the latest American Farm Bureau Federation basket survey, holiday meals this season will be more expensive. Specifically for Thanksgiving, the general farm group still expects the traditional meal – centered around turkey – will average almost $47, or less than $6 per person.

Turkey prices are up 24 percent year over year, but removing the bird from the list of other meal staples shows just a 6.6 percent increase. So again, the shopping list for Farm Bureau’s informal survey includes turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a veggie tray, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, coffee, and milk, all in quantities sufficient to serve a family of 10 with plenty for leftovers.

“Several factors contributed to the increase in average cost of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner,” said AFBF Senior Economist Veronica Nigh. “These include dramatic disruptions to the U.S. economy and supply chains over the last 20 months; inflationary pressure throughout the economy; difficulty in predicting demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and high global demand for food, particularly meat,” she explained. Further, “The trend of consumers cooking and eating at home more often due to the pandemic led to increased supermarket demand and higher retail food prices in 2020 and 2021, compared to pre-pandemic prices in 2019.”
(SOURCE: All Ag News)