Food for Thought
Thanksgiving 2023: Turkey & Sides on the Rise
Nov 17, 2023
Datasembly is uniquely positioned to provide up-to-date insights related to the true price changes in Thanksgiving basket items, as we collect over 12 billion prices from more than 150,000 stores representing 230 retailers every week. This enables Datasembly to provide actual pricing, rather than forecasts or estimates, to truly gauge what is occurring in stores and what consumers are actually seeing on shelves and online.
We reviewed the prices (as of November 11, 2023) of popular items typically found in Thanksgiving dinners at some of the largest US retailers like Walmart, Albertsons, Kroger and Target, and compared them to the same time period last year. The findings include 10 popular branded items from some of today’s largest consumer packaged goods companies.
The prices reflect year-over-year pricing as of November 11, 2023 and only include sides and desserts… details on the main attraction are coming. The same basket of Thanksgiving sides and desserts that cost $41.72 in 2022, now cost $44.34 in 2023; a 6.28% increase.
This year’s Thanksgiving sides and dessert will cost consumers more, but will the turkey provide any cost savings? The short answer is NO. Nationwide, whether consumers are purchasing a frozen or fresh whole turkey, they will pay more this year when compared to last year.
Nationwide prices for frozen turkey have gone up on average 12.8% YOY as of the week ending November 11th (after an 11% increase in 2022). Fresh turkey has also increased 2% (after a 19% increase last year). A significant factor driving these changes are the promotional activities which had been largely activated by mid-October in 2022, but started more slowly in 2023, noticeably concentrated at the end of October.
As of the week ending November 11, 2023 the nationwide average increase of 12.8% is not reflective of what’s happening in some states across the country. For instance, turkey prices in Washington have actually decreased by 12.8% with an average of $2.09 per pound, but prices for Louisiana are up a whopping 80.77% at $1.88 per pound in 2023 from $1.04 per pound the same week in 2022 (image below).
This means that Thanksgiving 2023 is going to require consumers to dig deeper into their wallets and the holiday is going to (ahem) gobble up more money.
