With Thanksgiving lower than three weeks away, the query of how a lot this 12 months’s turkey and trimmings will value looms massive, particularly with grocery costs 2.7% increased than they have been in 2024.
President Donald Trump has claimed over the previous two days that prices for the Thanksgiving meal are down 25% this 12 months, citing a prepackaged Thanksgiving meal basket from Walmart.
However Trump’s numbers are off. Right here’s a more in-depth take a look at the details.
CLAIM: Walmart costs present that the price of Thanksgiving dinner is 25% decrease in 2025 than in 2024.
THE FACTS: That is deceptive. Whereas Walmart’s 2025 meal basket prices about 25% lower than the one from 2024, that’s as a result of it provides fewer objects and completely different merchandise that make it extra reasonably priced.
“It’s not apples to apples, right?” mentioned David Anderson, a livestock economist at Texas A&M College. “What this does highlight is individual retailers’ strategies for getting customers in the door.”
The 2025 basket prices lower than $40 and feeds 10 folks, about $4 a head, in response to Walmart. In 2024, a basket for eight value roughly $56, lower than $7 per individual. That’s a few 25% lower, presumably extra relying on worth fluctuations. John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., touted the financial savings in a LinkedIn submit final month.
However the baskets differ considerably. For instance, this 12 months’s contains simply 15 objects in comparison with final 12 months’s 29. It’s lacking many dessert objects, together with a pecan pie, mini marshmallows and muffin combine, in addition to savory objects similar to candy potatoes, yellow onions and celery stalks.
The superstore retailer has additionally substituted some merchandise. As an alternative of 12 candy Hawaiian rolls, the 2025 deal contains 12 dinner rolls. Each are from Walmart’s retailer model. It additionally provides Kinder’s crispy fried onions versus French’s.
Plus, the quantity of every merchandise varies. Clients have been promised a 10-16 pound turkey in 2024, however a 13.5 pound one this 12 months. They usually’ll get one can of cream of mushroom soup as a substitute of two.
“They’re marketing it that ‘hey, this is a more affordable way,’ yet that implies that ‘man, stuff’s a lot more expensive,’” Anderson mentioned. “I guess it’s good marketing.”
A Thursday press launch from the White Home additionally cited cheaper Thanksgiving offers at Lidl’s, Aldi’s, Goal and Schnucks.
Goal’s four-person meal prices lower than $20, about the identical as in 2024, however substitutes inexperienced beans and cream of mushroom soup for French bread and frozen corn — additionally not an apples-to-apples comparability.
Schnucks offered The Related Press with a press launch saying the retailer is providing customers its lowest worth on a frozen store-brand turkey in over 15 years. It declined additional remark. Lidl US mentioned it’s providing its Thanksgiving meal on the lowest ever worth and Aldi mentioned its worth was decrease than 2024. Goal and Walmart didn’t remark.
In accordance with a latest report from Wells Fargo, the price of a 10-person Thanksgiving meal has fallen 2% to three% since 2024, relying partly on whether or not prospects go for nationwide identify manufacturers or cheaper retailer labels. The White Home press launch additionally cited this report.
Some economists have considerations concerning the worth of turkey. Purdue College’s Faculty of Agriculture reported on the finish of October that wholesale costs are up 75% since October 2024, whereas retail costs are 25% increased than a 12 months in the past.
An earlier evaluation from the American Farm Bureau Federation discovered that wholesale turkey costs have been up about 40%.
And but, that doesn’t imply each chicken shall be pricier in 2025. Anderson defined that as a result of sure retailers, similar to Walmart, contract their turkeys nicely upfront, the value for patrons could be a lot decrease than the market at present signifies.
“That gives them the flexibility to run those types of specials,” he mentioned.
