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A perennial media story this time of year looks at whether a Thanksgiving turkey dinner costs more or less than last year. Not too surprisingly, the answer depends on what side dishes you serve with the turkey. Deloitte provides tax, consulting, and other services to businesses. Their calculation of the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner over the past three years can be found here.
The following image shows the food that they include in their cost calculation. For that particular Thanksgiving dinner, the cost is slightly higher than in 2024, although slightly lower than in 2023.
Image from deloitte.com
The following image from the American Farm Bureau Federation, a lobbying organization for U.S. farmers, shows the food they include in their calculation of the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner.
Image from fb.org
For a Thanksgiving dinner with those side dishes, the price is about 5 percent lower this year than last year.
Image from fb.org
Note that the two estimates differ in the cost of the turkey. It’s not clear whether the difference is due to the size of the turkey or to differences in the price of the turkey. Related point: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) stopped collecting data on retail turkey prices in February 2020, at the start of the pandemic, and never resumed collecting them. Here’s the link to the BLS retail turkey price series on FRED. The series begins in January 1980 and ends in February 2020.
Justin Fox, in a column on bloomberg.com, notes that demand for turkey has been declining in recent years. The following figure uses data on turkey consumption per capita from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Turkey consumption peaked at 18.2 pounds per person in 1996 and has fallen to an estimated 13.1 pounds per person in 2025—a decline of about 28 percent. Is this decline an indication that people have moved away from eating turkey for Thanksgiving? Fox argues that it likely doesn’t. Note the rapid rise of turkey consumption between 1980 and 1990. Fox believes the surge in consumption was due to “both chicken and turkey [consumption increasing] as health concerns led many Americans to shun red meat starting in the late 1970s ….” In recent years, though, “red-meat consumption has steadied … chicken consumption has continued to rise, and turkey is losing out. Maybe people just don’t like how it tastes.” Glenn and Tony agree that, alas, turkey is often dry—although, admittedly, skilled cooks claim that it isn’t dry when prepared properly.
So, turkey may be holding its own at the heart of Thanksgiving dinners, but seems to be struggling to get on the menu during the rest of the year.
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