Your Thanksgiving Turkey Will Be Cheaper This Year

By Solcyré Burga
November 20, 2024 9:45 AM EST

The cost of the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving meal has declined for the second year in a row, with the cost of a 16-pound turkey reaching an average of $27, down about 6% from the year prior, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 39th annual Thanksgiving dinner survey. 

The turkey contributes to the decline in the current cost of the average Thanksgiving meal—which though lower, still remains more elevated than pre-pandemic levels. For 2024, the cost for a holiday meal for 10 people averaged about $58.08, or about $5.80 per person. That’s down 5% from 2023, and about 9% from 2022—the year that saw the highest jump in meal price in the entire history of the report. 

Many ingredients, aside from the turkey, saw a decrease in pricing as well. Sweet potatoes, for instance, dropped by 26.2%, while the cost of 1-pound of frozen peas went down by about 8%. A 30-ounce can of pumpkin pie mix, whole milk, frozen pie crust, and one-pound veggie tray also shrunk in cost. But some processed foods, such as dinner rolls and cubed stuffing, saw increases due to higher labor costs. The latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report found that labor costs have gone up by nearly 4% in the last 12 months.  

“We should all be thankful that we live in a country with such an abundant food supply,” Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall said in a press release. “We are seeing modest improvements in the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner for a second year, but America’s families, including farm families, are still being hurt by high inflation.”

Food prices rose sharply in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which predominately saw the price of meats and poultryrise, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). But the biggest price increase was recorded in 2022, when an avian influenza outbreak, and the Ukrainian war, impacted food prices  and they rose 9.9%. For 2024, the Department predicted that the cost of food (purchased at the grocery store) was estimated to increase by a total of 1.2% year-over-year due to economy-wide inflation. Since 2020, however, grocery store prices have increased by almost a quarter when compared to pre-pandemic years. 

The Farm Bureau conducts the survey by analyzing the prices of Thanksgiving staples—turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls, peas, cranberries, a veggie tray, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream—across all 50 states and Puerto Rico from Nov. 1 to 7.  The Bureau also tracks prices for boneless ham, Russet potatoes and frozen green beans, which when added to the basic cost of the Thanksgiving meal made the average price reach $77.34.