Americans stocking up for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner will see a dip in their grocery bills for the second year in a row, according to the 39th annual American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Thanksgiving dinner survey, which found that the classic feast for 10 will run you $58.08, down five percent from last year. However, this is still 19 percent higher than five years ago.
The classic dinner’s grocery bill is a mixed bag of savings and squeezes. This year, seven items dropped in price: turkey, sweet potatoes, frozen peas, a vegetable tray of carrots and celery, pumpkin pie mix, pie crusts, and whole milk. However, the remaining four items –dinner rolls, fresh cranberries, whipping cream, and cubed stuffing – rose in price.
The 2018 survey included prices for ham, Russet potatoes, and frozen green beans to reflect more Thanksgiving favorites, with all of them showing a year-over-year reduction in price. When including the additional items, the meal cost rose to $77.34, or $7.73 per person, with more leftovers, of course. The updated Thanksgiving dinner nearly doubled the cost savings of the classic basket – an 8.7 percent decrease in price from 2023.
Over the span of the AFBF Thanksgiving survey, turkey has accounted for an average of 43 percent of the total dinner cost. This year is right on the mark – a 16-pound turkey accounts for 44.2 percent of the classic 10-person feast. Given its large share of the total dinner bill, differences in the grocery bill year-over-year closely follow the change in turkey prices. This year’s six percent decrease in turkey prices is a bit of an anomaly. According to USDA’s Turkeys Raised report, farmers raised 205 million turkeys in 2024, down six percent from last year and the lowest since 1985. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza is responsible for the decline in turkeys raised. Typically, fewer turkeys would mean an increase in price, but demand for turkey fell in 2024. USDA estimates per capita demand for turkey is 13.9 pounds per person, down a pound from 2023. This drop in demand has caused prices to fall.
According to the report, the largest increases in your Thanksgiving dinner bill this year come from processed products. Dinner rolls and cubed stuffing both increased by over eight percent from 2023. Nonfood inflation and labor shortages have driven up costs for partners across the food supply chain.
Fresh cranberries had the next-largest price increase at 12 percent. This is a stabilization of prices after a significant 18 percent drop in prices from 2022 to 2023. Despite the year-over-year price increase, cranberries are still more affordable than historical averages. In fact, when adjusted for inflation, this is the lowest price for cranberries since 1987.
