Why Is The Average Cost Of This Year's Thanksgiving Feast 14% Higher Than Last Year's?

What Happened: According to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s (AFBF) 36th annual survey of the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner, the average cost of this year’s feast for 10 is $53.31 or less than $6.00 per person. This is a $6.41 or 14% increase from last year’s average of $46.90.

Where did the added costs come from? The AFBF noted the average cost of a 16-pound turkey is $23.99, which is up 24% from last year. Other costlier items for the annual meal include one dozen dinner rolls averaging $3.05 (up 15%), a 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries: $2.98 (up 11%), 1 gallon of whole milk: $3.30 (up 7%), 1 pound of frozen peas: $1.54 (up 6%) and 3 pounds of sweet potatoes: $3.56 (up 4%).

The lone Thanksgiving mainstay that is less expensive this year versus last year is a 14-ounce bag of cubed stuffing mix, which averages $2.29 (down 19%).

Why It Happened: AFBF Senior Economist Veronica Nigh attributed the higher costs of this year’s Thanksgiving meal to several factors.

“These include dramatic disruptions to the U.S. economy and supply chains over the last 20 months; inflationary pressure throughout the economy; difficulty in predicting demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and high global demand for food, particularly meat,” she said.

“The trend of consumers cooking and eating at home more often due to the pandemic led to increased supermarket demand and higher retail food prices in 2020 and 2021, compared to pre-pandemic prices in 2019,” Nigh added.

The AFBF calculated the national average cost from 218 surveys with pricing data from all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

This pricier Thanksgiving holiday comes at a time when a new LendingTree TREE survey found that a record level Of Americans are planning to host a Thanksgiving meal. Of course, one could always follow a different route and emulate Doc Severinsen’s gourmand preference for lasagna at Thanksgiving:

Photo: Vicki DeLoach / Flickr Creative Commons