Not too late to shop: Thanksgiving chefs to find lower turkey prices this year

VERONA, Wis. (WMTV) - If you haven’t shopped for Thanksgiving dinner yet, you are not alone.

Millers and Sons Supermarket in Verona expects to see the busiest crowd the day before the holiday, according to an employee.

Shoppers will find turkey to be generally cheaper than it was last year. “That’s primarily because the big avian flu outbreak from last year is subsided,” Andrew Stevens, associate professor of agricultural and applied economics at UW-Madison said. For wholesale, prices are even down 25% from last year.

Meanwhile, food prices are up overall. “Thankfully they’re not going up as quickly as they were last year when inflation was really running amok,” he said.

The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) said this year will have the second most expensive Thanksgiving meal in nearly 40 years, citing a national survey the group conducted.

On average, Stevens expects about a 5% increase in food prices this year, and the higher costs of basic ingredients to add up.

“I was surprised at how many sticks of butter I need for my Thanksgiving meal,” he said. “When you think about all those different components, not just for this meal but also our baseline diets, it hits the pocket book for sure.”

A classic Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people this year is expected to cost $61.17 nationally. AFBF also forecasts, the average price for the same dinner in the Midwest will be cheaper at $58.66.

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