News

Cost drops for Thanksgiving dinner

The cost of Thanksgiving dinner is down.  A non-scientific price survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation shows the average cost of this year’s feast for 10 is $49.87.

“That’s below $5 per person,” said John Newton, director of market intelligence at the American Farm Bureau.

The total price for the meal for ten is down 24-cents from last year.  Newton says the big ticket item – a 16-pound turkey – came in at a total of $22.74 this year.  For the whole bird, that’s down about thirty cents from last year.

“Turkey prices, on average, were $1.42/pound,” he said, “and that’s down about 1 percent from the prices we saw last year.”

Newton tells Brownfield a total 148 shoppers purchased items for a traditional holiday meal.  And while turkey, pumpkin pie and milk are down, the price for rolls, cranberries and sweet potatoes were slightly higher.

“The good news,” said Newton, “is that after adjusting for inflation, the price of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner is actually lower than it was 31 years ago when we first started this survey.”

AUDIO: Dr. John Newton (3 min. MP3)