U.S. Thanksgiving dinner cost jumps with inflation on the menu, though
deals remain
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[November 19, 2021]
By Tom Polansek and Christopher Walljasper
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Thanksgiving dinner
will cost U.S. consumers an average of 14% more this year in the biggest
annual increase in 31 years, the American Farm Bureau Federation said,
though shoppers can still find deals in grocery stores.
Rising food and gas prices are squeezing U.S. consumers as the pandemic
snarls global supply chains and the economic drag from the summer wave
of COVID-19 infections fades.
The Farm Bureau, which represents U.S. farmers and the broader
agriculture industry, pointed to inflation and supply-chain disruptions
for lifting the average cost of a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people to
$53.31 from a 10-year-low $46.90 in 2020. The cost is based on Farm
Bureau shoppers who checked prices for turkey, cranberries, dinner rolls
and other staples in stores from Oct. 26 to Nov. 8.
"The cranberry sauce, the stuffing, all those things that are
traditional, have gone up," said Sherry Hooker, a 69-year-old retiree
shopping at Jewel-Osco store in Chicago on Thursday.
GRAPHIC: Thanksgiving dinner price jump
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The COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult to predict consumer demand,
which adds to high prices, the Farm Bureau said. Average prices for
turkey, the centerpiece of many Thanksgiving dinners, are up 24% from
2020 at about $1.50 per pound, Farm Bureau said.
Without turkey, the price for the overall meal is up 6.6%. That is in
line with the 6.2% increase in the U.S. Consumer Price Index in October,
when the index saw its biggest annual rise since November 1990, although
it is a bit above the 5.4% year-over-year increase for the Labor
Department's measure of costs for food consumed at home.
Adjusted for inflation, Thanksgiving costs are up for the first time
since 2015 and 7% higher than last year, Farm Bureau data show.
In Chicago, Cinda Shaver, 62, said she now spends at least $120 a week
shopping for two people at discount supermarket Aldi, up from $90
previously for the same items.
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![](../images/111921pics/busine11.jpg)
Heritage turkey seen at Elmwood Stock Farm ahead of the Thanksgiving
holiday in Georgetown, Kentucky, U.S., November 16, 2021. REUTERS/Amira
Karaoud
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Cooks can still find deals as the holiday approaches, though.
Visits by Reuters to two grocery stores on Thursday showed prices vary widely.
The same basket of items the Farm Bureau checked cost just $40.01 at a Big Y
store in Newtown, Connecticut, including frozen turkey for 99 cents a pound.
At Jewel-Osco in Chicago, generic brand frozen turkeys were on sale for as
little as 49 cents a pound.
Farm Bureau said its shoppers checked prices about two weeks before most
supermarket chains began featuring whole frozen turkeys at lower prices. The
average per-pound sale price for whole frozen turkeys was $1.07 from Nov. 5-11
and dropped 18% to 88 cents from Nov. 12-18, Farm Bureau said.
"The good news is that the top turkey producers in the country are confident
that everyone who wants a bird for their Thanksgiving dinner will be able to get
one, and a large one will only cost $1 more than last year," U.S. Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that prices for Thanksgiving staples
are up about 5% from last year, based on government data. It tracked prices of a
12-pound turkey, sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, cranberries and a gallon of
milk.
Hooker, for one, will not cut back on her Thanksgiving feast because of high
prices. Instead, she said she will "bite the bullet and have tradition."
"It's once a year," she said.
(Reporting by Tom Polansek and Christopher Walljasper in Chicago and Daniel
Burns in Newtown, Connecticut; editing by Diane Craft)
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