The busiest phone line this week will almost certainly be the Turkey Talk-Line.
Operated by Butterball — which claims to sell ⅓ of Thanksgiving turkeys — the line will field 100k+ calls related to cooking time and stuffing best practices.
It’ll probably hear a few of these questions, too: “Yo, why is everything so expensive this year?”
Prices for Thanksgiving favorites…
… are up across the board, compared to the first week of November 2020:
- Thanksgiving meats (+7.4%)
- Sides (+6.3%)
- Pies (+4.7%)
The price increases come as grocers deal with supply chain issues while trying to meet rising demand.
Thanksgiving was a subdued affair in 2020
Smaller gatherings led to demand for smaller birds. This year, people are looking to get festive.
About 36% of consumers are planning for a dinner with 10+ people; this is ~2x more than 2020 (19%) and nearly on par with 2019 (40%), per The Wall Street Journal.
Larger turkeys are back in the mix but there’s a shortage of some real necessities like pie crust, cream cheese, cranberry sauce, and — please, no — liquid gravy.
There could still be deals
Bloomberg notes that many shoppers stocked up early this year. Prices may wane today as grocers discount any excess inventory.
So if you told your family, “don’t worry, I’ll put Thanksgiving together at the very last second,” you may actually come out ahead.
And if you need recipe inspiration, the experts at Butterball’s Turkey Talk-Line have you covered: For the first time, they are spreading their magic on TikTok.
