Turkey Prices Ease This Year, but Watch Out for the Sides (the cost of the average Thanksgiving meal for a group of 10 people is down 5% from lasts year)

The average price for a turkey is expected to fall 6.1%, but a pecan pie may cost 8% more

By Kirk Maltais of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"The average price for a turkey this holiday season is projected to be down for a second year in a row, said the American Farm Bureau Federation"

"some favorite side dishes will remain stubbornly expensive for shoppers"

"The Farm Bureau projects the average price for a Thanksgiving turkey to fall 6.1% to $25.67, or $1.68 a pound, this year. The lower price comes amid lower costs for feed grains and despite lower production of turkeys in the U.S. thanks to the spread of bird flu in American poultry farms."

"A smaller North American potato crop this year due to adverse weather issues and a change in consumer demand has the U.S. potato price up 7.6% year over year"

"The Farm Bureau said that it expects prices for a 14-ounce package of stuffing mix to increase by more than 8% from last year to $4.08. The price for a dozen dinner rolls also is expected to rise by more than 8% to $4.16."

"prices for some pies may be increasing, with Expana’s Thanksgiving Pecan Pie index up 8% from last year, due mostly to higher prices for pecans that are offsetting cheaper costs for sugar, vanilla and butter."

"the Farm Bureau forecasts the cost of the average Thanksgiving meal for a group of 10 people at $58.08. That’s down 5% from the previous year, and down 9% from the record of $64.06 set in 2022, the highest since the Farm Bureau began its yearly assessment in 1986."

Here is a graph of the change in cost over time from economists Samantha Ayoub, Bernt Nelson & Betty Resnick of The American Farm Bureau Federation.

It looks like the cost has not changed that much adjusted for inflation over the last 20 years.

Here is one that goes from 1986-2019. It looks like the price fell from about $25 in 1986 to about $20 in 2019 (in 2019 $s).