CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – With grocery prices up significantly over the past couple of years, some bit of relief with the annual Virginia Farm Bureau Thanksgiving meal market basket informal survey finding the price down slightly for that turkey day meal.
In shopping excursions across the Commonwealth from Oct. 20-to-Nov. 6, the average cost of a Thanksgiving meal for 10 persons was $80.48, down from $81.07 last year.
Part of the equation is the price of the most expensive item, the turkey, actually moderated in the price hike from years past.
“Our 16-pound whole frozen turkey was an average of $27.50, or $1.72 (per pound),” Virginia Farm Bureau spokesperson Elijah Griles told Cville Right Now. “So that was a 2% increase from last year, up from $1.68 per pound last year, but we saw a lot of our other goods actually come down.”
The survey includes the foods that are common on most Thanksgiving tables.
Griles said, “Everything except our frozen peas, fresh celery, carrots, pie shells, and stuffing mix was down, ” Griles noted.
The survey showed that the average cost of a gallon of whole milk was $3.45; frozen peas, $1.72; frozen green beans, $1.73; three pounds of sweet potatoes, $3.18; a 5-pound bag of russet potatoes, $3.28; fresh celery, $1.78; fresh carrots, $1.36; two pie shells, $3.42; whipping cream, $3.39; canned pumpkin pie filling, $3.86; fresh cranberries, $2.06; stuffing mix, $3.25; and a dozen dinner rolls, $3.30.
Frozen peas were 2 cents higher, fresh celery was 6 cents higher, carrots were 4 cents higher, pie shells were 2 cents higher, and stuffing mix was 12 cents higher than last year.
“We also saw our ham comes down a little bit,” Griles said.
As for turkey, “We’ve seen turkey prices kind remaining stubbornly high over the past few years because of the whole issue surrounding highly pathogenic avian influenza, everybody’s talking about it and the turkey industry feels that pressure.”
So the consumer if feeling slightly less pressure with turkey purchase this year.
Of all the market baskets purchased in Virginia, the farm bureau shopper paid the most in Orange County at $117.31 while the shopper paid the lowest in the city of Richmond at $55.85.
Griles said one of the things that makes this survey informal is that not all factors are the same for every shopper in every store.
An important thing to note, Griles said, is, “Our survey was started on the 20th of October and that’s a month ahead of where we are today on November 20th, and a lot of stores are not running promotions on that most expensive item which is the turkey at that point.”
He said the survey in Orange County was conducted on Oct. 20.
“As we get closer here a week out from Thanksgiving, every store is trying to move turkeys out,” Griles said.
“They’re running promotions, buy-one-get-one deals, all these types of things to get those turkeys sold in advance of Thanksgiving.”
He said the most expensive meal was bought in Orange County Oct. 20, “And the thing that really made it different from all the other surveys was the turkey was still very expensive at that point.”
“We hadn’t seen any sort of those discounts that people are getting as we got later in the survey period up until our November 6 deadline.”
He said that doesn’t mean people in Orange will have to run over to Louisa, Greene, or Albemarle counties to get a less expensive Thanksgiving meal.
