Dig deep to give thanks in 2021
Several factors could make this year’s meal the most expensive in holiday’s history
Thanksgiving 2021 could be the most expensive meal in the history of the holiday.
Nearly every component of the traditional dinner, from turkey to the disposable aluminum roasting pan to the sweet potatoes, dinner rolls, coffee and pie, will cost more this year, according to agricultural economists, farmers and grocery executives.
The nation’s food supply has been battered by a knotted supply chain, high transportation expenses, labor shortages, trade policies and bad weather. Inflation is at play, too. In September, the Consumer Price Index for food was up 4.6% from a year ago. Prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs soared 10.5%.
For many cooks, the biggest expense will be the turkey. By the end of the year, market analysts say, prices per pound will likely surpass the record Department of Agriculture benchmark price for turkeys — $1.36, set in 2015.
Turkey is more expensive largely because the price of corn, which most commercial turkeys feed on, more than doubled in some parts of the country from July 2020 to July 2021. Whole frozen birds between 8 and 16 pounds already cost 25 cents a pound more than they did a year ago, according to a recent weekly Department of Agriculture turkey report.
The price hikes are hitting in a year when COVID-19 vaccines and loosened health guidelines point to more and bigger holiday celebrations than in 2020. There will be fewer turkeys on the market, but demand is expected to be higher, particularly for smaller birds and for more carefully raised and processed turkeys.
Kroger executives are anticipating more of what marketers call the “premiumization” of Thanksgiving ingredients, with many cooks shopping for turkeys that are fresh, organic, free-range or processed in ways that elevate them beyond an inexpensive frozen bird.
“Customers aren’t necessarily going out to restaurants, so they are upping their game in terms of products,” said Stuart Aitken, the company’s chief merchant.
Still, plenty of households will be looking for bargain turkeys and trying to stretch their food budget.
“I can buy that this will be the most expensive Thanksgiving ever, but there’s an income-inequality story here that matters a lot,” said Trey Malone, an agricultural economist at Michigan State University. “The rich are going to be spending more on Thanksgiving than they have ever spent before, but not everyone is going to be able to do that.”
Packaged dinner rolls will be pricier because the cost of almost all of the ingredients that commercial bakers use has gone up. Canned cranberry sauce will cost more because domestic steel plants have yet to catch up after pandemic shutdowns, and China is limiting steel production to reduce carbon emissions. As a result, steel prices have remained more than 200% higher than they were before the pandemic.
Caroline Hoffman is already stashing canned pumpkin in the kitchen of her Chicago apartment when she finds some for under a dollar. She recently spent almost $2 more for the vanilla she’ll need to bake pumpkin bread and other desserts for celebrations she’s been invited to.
Extreme weather has made Thanksgiving ingredients cost more, too. Hurricane Ida shut cane-sugar refineries in the South, and grape, nut and citrus crops in California have suffered under this year’s drought.