How Much Does a Turkey Cost in the United States?

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and heres how we make money.

The cost of your Thanksgiving turkey can now be added to the list of things for which you should be grateful, along with the roof over your head and the gadget you’re using to read this.

The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), which discovered that the average cost of an 8–16-pound turkey was $1, says that. 27 per pound in August 2023 — a 22% decline from August 2022. The U. S. Department of Agriculture likewise lists the average price per pound for frozen, whole hen turkeys as $1. 27 in August 2023 — down just over 22% from $1. 64 in August 2022.

Prices for some turkey products dropped more sharply. For example, boneless and skinless male turkey breasts were 23% less expensive in August 2020 than they were at the same time last year, according to the AFBF.

How the avian flu could affect turkey availability

The supply chain involved in poultry production means that the timing of bird flu outbreaks influences the availability of specific varieties of turkeys, according to Martin.

Because producers can store frozen turkeys for up to a year before we see them on grocery shelves, Martin claims that there should be a “ample supply” of frozen turkeys. However, Martin says that because of the recent spike in influenza cases, fresh turkeys will be more difficult to find. That outbreak coincided with the end of the poultry industry’s “seasonal processing,” Martin says. Fresh turkeys should have been processed four to six weeks in advance if they were to be available in grocery stores by Thanksgiving.

One pound of frozen whole turkey will yield around 8 ounces of meat.

The majority of the fresh stock has already been processed and is being kept refrigerated at this late date, according to Martin. “If you need a fresh bird, you should be ordering it now. Not later — now. ”.

Frozen turkeys are often cheaper than fresh turkeys. As of Nov. 3, the average cost of a frozen turkey is roughly $1.18 per pound in the northeastern U.S., compared to $1.69 per pound for fresh turkeys, according to the USDA’s most recent nationalturkeyretail report. (The USDA lists the prices of both fresh and frozen turkeys only in the northeast.)

Martin says that since small farms are unable to process and store turkeys as far back as larger producers can, you might not be able to get a fresh turkey from one this year.

“If youre ordering from a local farm, you probably shouldve done it last month,” Martin says.

Poultry industry ‘holding its breath’

In early 2022, what would become the largest bird flu outbreak in U. S. history started infecting wild and commercial flocks. More than 60 million birds have been killed since then, and as a result of the declining supply, the cost of chicken and eggs has sharply increased.

But the situation has improved. In September 2023, a little over 500 birds contracted the avian flu. That’s a dramatic decline from the same period one year earlier, when 8. 15 million birds contracted the flu, according to the AFBF.

“We’re holding our breath,” says Gregory P. Martin, an extension educator in poultry at Penn State University Extension, speaking about the broader poultry industry.

But while the situation is much better than last year, avian flu cases have started climbing again. There were 520 new avian influenza cases in September; in October, there were 1. 37 million new cases. So far in November, 1. 09 million new cases have been detected.

How Much I Spent in 1 Month Travelling Turkey