Price of Thanksgiving Dinner Rises Only a Penny

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Price of Thanksgiving Dinner Rises Only a Penny

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When the prices of all the items on the menu for a Thanksgiving dinner are added together, they will rise only one penny from last year. That brings this year’s total to $48.91 for a dinner for 10, which is about $5 per person.

The American Farm Bureau Federation does an analysis of Thanksgiving meal costs. This year is the 34th time the organization has issued its figure. AFBF Chief Economist Dr. John Newton commented on the trend, “The average cost of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner is essentially unchanged from last year, after three years of decline since 2015.” He pointed out that only eight cents of each dollar of this goes to farmers. The balance is primarily the cost of food preparation and expenses added by the retail process.

The measure included the prices of the turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, other vegetables, pumpkin pie, whipped cream and coffee and milk. The biggest drop in prices from last year is turkey, the cost of which dropped $0.91 to $20.80, and stuffing, which dropped $0.19 to $2.68. The largest increases were 12 rolls, which rose $0.25 to $2.50, and three pounds of sweet potatoes, which rose $0.36 to $3.75.

The American Farm Bureau elected to look at a “non-traditional” meal as well. This included ham, potatoes and frozen green beans. The cost of a meal including these moved the price to $62.32.

The final conclusion of the survey was that the vast majority of people eat their meals at home. Ninety-two percent had their meal in their own homes or a family member’s homes.

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The research was done by 250 people who checked prices in 38 states. They looked for the best prices they could find.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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