Thanksgiving dinner inflation will cost you about 25% more than 4 years ago

The costs of Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings may be a little lighter on the wallet this year, but it is still much more expensive than it was before the coronavirus pandemic.

According to a survey completed by the American Farm Bureau Federation , the estimated price to feed a gathering of 10 people on Thanksgiving Day decreased by 4.5% in 2023, but that is still 25% higher than 2019.

“We still have inflation, but not at such a high rate as last year,” Eleanor Xu, an economics and finance professor at Seton Hall University said Tuesday. “Believe it or not, we’ve actually seen a 7.6% reduction in consumer food prices since last November.”

Xu’s observations corroborate some of the findings in the farm bureau’s 38th annual survey. The survey conducted by volunteer shoppers from Nov. 1 to 6 compared prices of typical holiday meals around the country. The centerpiece of most Thanksgivings, the turkey, has actually come down in price and is responsible for the majority of savings on holiday dinner tables.

“Traditionally, the turkey is the most expensive item on the Thanksgiving dinner table,” farm bureau Senior Economist Veronica Nigh said in a statement. “Turkey prices have fallen thanks to a sharp reduction in cases of avian influenza, which have allowed production to increase in time for the holiday.”

Purdue University professor and Director of the Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability Joseph Balagtas found that the turkey is responsible for most of the trimmed fat from the holiday budget.

“Food prices in general are still 3.7% higher than they were a year ago, and something like 15% higher than they were two years ago,” Balagtas told the Associated Press on Nov. 13 . “So due largely to lower turkey prices, we estimate the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner this year to be about 9% lower than the cost last year.”

But the price for other traditional foods on the holiday dinner table remain high.

“Processed food prices are still higher,” Xu said. “This is because of labor costs. The more processing a food has to undergo, the higher the price.”

The farm bureau found that the average price of a 12-ounce can of cranberries was $2.10, a three-pound bag of sweet potatoes cost $3.97 and a 30-ounce package of pumpkin pie mix averaged $4.44.

“While shoppers will see a slight improvement in the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner, high inflation continues to hammer families across the country, including nations farmers,” farm bureau President Zippy Duvall said. “Growing the food families rely on is a constant challenge for farmers because of high fuel, seed, fertilizer and transportation costs, just to name a few.”

Some of the larger realities impacting food prices extend beyond the United States. Xu pointed to the war in Ukraine as an example of factors abroad that hit consumers’ wallets more locally.

“Ukraine is an enormous agricultural producer,” Xu said.

Labor is also an issue.

“The reality is that we still have a labor shortage,” Rutgers University finance and economics professor Arthur Guarino said Tuesday. “If there aren’t enough workers to pick the crops, farmers can miss out on delivering goods to market. Meanwhile, the cost of labor has shot up, as well.”

In New Jersey, food prices are at particular risk of increasing as local farms and farmers wrestle with the question of whether to continue in a tough business. The Garden State, in particular, faces several challenges in living up to its namesake.

“We have a problem with farms and farmers disappearing in New Jersey,” Guarino said. “We’re running out of land because farming is difficult to make profitable. It’s much easier to sell off the land to developers and live off the residual profits.”

Guarino said there are state programs that provide financial assistance to farmers like the Farmland Preservation Program , in which the state purchases the development rights to farm land and creates a deed restriction to avoid use of that property for anything else other than agriculture.

“The reality is that if fewer farms exist in New Jersey, the farther food has to travel to reach consumers here,” Guarino explained. “And when food travels further, the higher the price climbs for those products because of labor, fuel and packaging.”

Guarino also cautioned that water scarcity is impacting crops as climate change alters precipitation levels in certain areas around the globe.

“If a farmer’s aquifer dries up because of low rain and snowfall, now they have to purchase water from a water company. This also makes farming very difficult in New Jersey,” Guarino said.

Xu, the Seton Hall economics professor, had some advice for consumers putting together a holiday menu.

“Because of interest rates, consumers should try their best to stay within their means this year,” she said. “The average credit card interest rate is 27%, and avoiding over-purchasing for a Thanksgiving meal would certainly help avoid long-term financial distress.”