How Hard Will It Be To Find A Thanksgiving Turkey In Georgia?

GEORGIA — Thanksgiving Day isn’t until Nov. 24, but if you’re planning to make turkey the centerpiece of your feast, you should try to gobble one up at Georgia grocery stores now.

Inflation and the bird flu have landed a one-two gut punch on Americans who plan their Thanksgiving dinners around turkey. The bird will be more expensive and harder to find this year, agriculture industry experts warn.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a call with reporters Tuesday it may be harder to find a big, 20-pound turkey, enough to feed a dozen or so people, but smaller birds should be easier to find.

“Some of the turkeys that are being raised right now for Thanksgiving may not have the full amount of time to get to 20 pounds,” Vilsack said, according to a report by Axios.

But, he said, “I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about whether or not you can carve your turkey on Thanksgiving. It’s going to be there, maybe smaller, but it’ll be there.”

It will also cost more.

The price of an 8- to 16-pound turkey has risen to $1.47 a pound, from $1.15 a pound last year, according to USDA data. That’s an increase of about 28 percent. Frozen toms and hens are holding steady at around $1.99 a pound, according to the data.

Grocery store turkey prices for a fresh boneless, skinless turkey breast reached a record $6.70 per pound in September, according to the latest Consumer Price Index.

That’s 112 percent higher than at the same time in 2021, when prices for the same piece of poultry were $3.16 a pound. The previous record price for a fresh boneless, skinless breast was $5.88 per pound in 2015, another year when avian flu decimated turkey flocks.

Food prices in general were 11.4 percent higher than in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation report. That means the overall cost of Thanksgiving dinner will be higher.

Last year at Thanksgiving, a 16-pound turkey cost around $24, according to the Farm Bureau. The organization is expected to release its annual report on the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner later this month.

If it all seems a bit too much to take on, there’s an alternative. Several metro Atlanta restaurants are open Thanksgiving Day.

• Related: 45 Restaurants Open Thanksgiving Day 2022

More than 8 million turkeys have died from bird flu in the current outbreak, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The current outbreak of avian flu could surpass the 2015 outbreak, when 50.5 million birds died.

As of Sunday, 20 birds were affected in Georgia, according to the CDC.

The rampant spread of bird flu and an uptick this fall “are taking a toll” on growers, American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said in a statement. As Vilsack did Tuesday, Duvall said there will be plenty of turkeys.

Turkey growers are paying more for feed, fuel, fertilizer and labor, and aren’t profiting from the higher grocery store prices, Duvall said, pointing to Farm Bureau forecasts that show production costs that have increased 17.8 percent from 2021, to $437.4 billion.