While shoppers will perceive the discounts on Black Friday as 'saving' them fortunes, the cost of the 2013 Thanksgiving Day dinner may be the most expensive ever. As the gorging commences, despite an entirely benign inflation in the eyes of the Federal Reserve, the prices of everything from chocolate chip cookies to ice cream are on the rise. But it is the centerpiece of the meal that is weighing on pocket-books. As Bloomberg's Michael McDonough notes, Americans are paying the most for whole frozen turkeys since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began publishing data on the series in 1980. The U.S. city average price per pound for frozen turkeys climbed to $1.819 in September, up from $1.433 at the end of last year and $1.621 a year prior. Septemberâs price implies an average 15 pound Thanksgiving turkey will cost Americans $27.29 this year, compared to less than $25 dollars last year. Frozen turkey prices have risen substantially during the past decade, probably due to rising input costs. Turkey prices averaged just $1.071 per pound between 2000 and 2004, compared to $1.579 per pound since 2010. This price increase is nearly double the rise in overall inflation during the same period. Corn prices, a major source of turkey feed, rose by nearly 200 percent during the same period helping boost the cost of the final product. There is a silver linig though - potentially... Source: Bloomberg's Michael McDonough (@MMcDonough)
Frozen-Turkey Pileup Signaling Discounts for Thanksgiving By Dalton Barker & Elizabeth Campbell - Nov 26, 2013 1:50 PM MT "The Henningsen Cold Storage Co. warehouse in Stilwell, Oklahoma, was so jammed with frozen turkeys from the likes of Butterball LLC and Cargill Inc. this year that manager Scott Mayberry turned down requests to store about 1 million more birds, or double his inventory. âWe didnât have any room,â said Mayberry, who manages 3.5 million cubic feet of space that is the size of two Home Depot Inc. (HD) stores and usually holds as much as 20 million pounds (9,072 metric tons) of frozen turkeys before the Thanksgiving holiday in November, the peak for U.S. demand. "Rising output last year and slowing sales left domestic stockpiles tracked by the government at four-year highs in August and September. That signals deeper seasonal discounts on retail prices that are the highest on record going back to 1980, because about 85 percent of the 46 million birds Americans eat at Thanksgiving meals are frozen rather than fresh, according to the National Turkey Federation. âWe overproduced a bit in 2012, and we had quite a few excess birds left over in freezers,â said Tom Elam, the president of food-industry consultant FarmEcon LLC in Carmel, Indiana. "U.S. warehouses held 325.34 million pounds of frozen whole turkeys in September and 335.55 million pounds in August, the highest for each month since 2009, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show. Stockpiles typically peak at that time of year in preparation for Thanksgiving, said David Harvey, a USDA economist. "Cheaper Birds "Farmers will sell turkeys on average for $1.01 to $1.05 a pound in the last three months of 2013, as much as 4.8 percent less than a year earlier, the USDA estimates. "The decline comes as prices fall for many commodities. The Standard & Poorâs GSCI Spot Index of 24 raw materials is down 3.7 percent this year, heading for the first annual drop since the recession in 2008, led by a 39 percent plunge in corn. The Bloomberg U.S. Treasury Bond Index lost 2.3 percent since the end of December, while the MSCI All-Country World Index of equities rose 18 percent. "While retail meat prices tracked by the government rallied to records this year, after a 2012 surge in feed costs forced poultry and beef producers to cut output, consumers probably will be paying less for Thanksgiving birds than in 2012, said Corinne Alexander, an agricultural economist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. "Discounts "Whole frozen turkeys averaged $1.819 a pound in September, up 12 percent from a year earlier and the highest since at least 1980, the Bureau of Labor data show. Consumers wonât have to pay that much because retailers discount the birds at this time of year as a âloss leaderâ to attract more shoppers, Alexander said. "With a âsubstantialâ drop in wholesale costs, grocers will expand promotions and discounts on Thanksgiving turkeys, with some already at 59 cents a pound, said Russell Whitman of commodity researcher Urner Barry in Toms River, New Jersey. "Schaulâs Signature Gourmet Foods, an Elk Grove, Illinois-based grocery distributor, is saving a few cents a pound on every frozen turkey it buys from processors and growers in the northern Midwest, said Robert Schaul, 62, the company president. âThere are plenty of turkeys this year,â Schaul said, adding that he is selling frozen birds for about $1.45 to $1.50 a pound, down a few pennies from last year." More>>
This seems to be in direct contradiction with this item (from AFBF): http://www.fb.org/index.php?action=newsroom.news&year=2013&file=nr1114.html Cost of Classic Thanksgiving Dinner Down for 2013 WASHINGTON, D.C., November 14, 2013 â The American Farm Bureau Federationâs 28th annual informal price survey of classic items found on the Thanksgiving Day dinner table indicates the average cost of this yearâs feast for 10 is $49.04, a 44-cent price decrease from last yearâs average of $49.48." ...
Turkey prices fall a lot from Sep to Nov every year, due to discounting. I did not know that before Tsing made this post. Wait 'til the last minute to buy. Learn something everyday. : )
Now suppose you're driving somewhere for your Thanksgiving dinner... <img src="http://charts.gasbuddy.com/ch.gaschart?Country=Canada&Crude=f&Period=24&Areas=USA%20Average,,&Unit=US%20$/G">
From your article: At least it's a scientific study! Wonder if they have census employees from the BLS working there. Interesting data table at the right of the article showing the average costs over the years. 35% inflation in the last 10 years according to that data. 10% in the last 5 years. 70% since the survey began in the 80s.
the cost of turkeys exploded under obama and quantitative easing. plus they want to take away our guns so we cant go out and hunt them. The dems want to keep all the turkeys for big govt.
So your price data jives with the original article. As for discounts in waiting until the last minute, I'm sure you CAN get discounts on frozen turkeys by waiting until the last minute. But that doesn't help anyone who wants turkey on Thanksgiving. Anyone who has any experience at all in cooking a turkey knows there's no way in bloody hell you're defrosting a frozen turkey in 1, even 2 days. Takes 3 to 4 days with a 20 pound frozen bird. You can cold water thaw it, I guess, but even then it take a long time. Regardless, inflation is about what people pay on average. Discounts are irrelevant. You can find grocers out there who give you a free turkey if you buy $50 of groceries.
<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/11/19/business/economy/economix-19turkeyretailMoM/economix-19turkeyretailMoM-blog480.png"> Turkey economics, annotated