The math doesn’t quite add up. This year, wholesale turkey prices are 40% higher than a year ago. There’s been food inflation, plus tariffs on imports like coffee, beef and tomatoes that pushed prices even higher, though tariffs on 200 items were rolled back last week.
But according to the local and national farm bureaus, the cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people declined 5.3% in the U.S. and 8.1% in Colorado compared with last year.
Bad math? Not for consumers, apparently. Retailers are likely eating the loss, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, which noted in its latest cost of Thanksgiving dinner report, “grocery stores are featuring Thanksgiving deals and attempting to draw consumer demand back to turkey, leading to lower retail prices for a holiday bird.”
The U.S. average was $55.18 for a meal that serves 10 people. In Colorado, the same feast cost $65.94.
While that makes the same meal $10 more expensive in Colorado, the price is about $10 less than last year, thanks to a 13.4% price drop for the turkey, plus double-digit savings on milk, frozen green peas, frozen pie shells and pumpkin pie mix. (Vegetables, sweet potatoes, dinner rolls and cubed stuffing cost more.)
To read the entire article, visit The Colorado Sun.