Turkey price increase

Consumers are going to be likely paying more for Turkey this year than they did last year. Agriculture Department livestock analyst Shayle Shagam says Turkey producers have been gradually reducing production over the last few years because output was growing faster than demand. And so this year's stocks of frozen turkey as we started November, 17 percent smaller than last year. And so we're seeing these tight supplies leading to higher wholesale prices. Back at the end of September, wholesale prices, the prices that grocery stores pay were the highest on record a dollar 44 a pound on average. And that's wholesale, remember? However, the Retailer doesn't necessarily fully pass on the higher wholesale prices. Thanksgiving is obviously a time when there is a lot of featuring of turkeys. They may treat turkeys in some cases as what we refer to as a loss leader, where they will actually sell it for a lower price than they paid for. To encourage people to come into the stores and buy things like stuffing and sweet potatoes and cranberries, and the usual fixings at one tends to find at Thanksgiving time. With that in mind. Shayle Shagam has scanned some of the advertised grocery store specials on Turkey across the country, and here's what he found. If we just look at the frozen hen turkey that we track the featuring price as of the week of the 29th of October through the 4th of November, those stores that are offering featuring is are offering it an average price of about a dollar fifteen a pound, compared to about 99 cents a pound last year.