This Year’s Thanksgiving Dinner Just Got A Lot More Expensive

This year, Thanksgiving dinner is going to cost Americans a lot more money than it has in previous years as the cost of food is increasing significantly ahead of the holiday.

Veronica Nigh, senior economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, told CBC’s “Money Watch,” “When you go to the grocery store and it feels more expensive, that’s because it is.”

Food prices are up 3.7% so far in 2021, compared to a 20-year average of about 2.4%, Nigh added. This means food bills for Thanksgiving meals will cost 4% to 5% more this year than a year ago, CBS News reported.

An unhealthy mix of supply chain issues, increased transportation costs, material shortages, weather conditions, labor shortages and other pandemic-related issues are pushing food costs up.

The price of turkey with all the trimmings is expected to cost 4% to 5% more this year than it did in 2020, when an average meal prepared at home was priced at around $47, according to the Farm Bureau.

Part of the problem is due to the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, which has put a constraint on the nation’s meat supply. As Americans stayed home during the pandemic, more cooking was done at home, sending the demand for meat higher and increasing prices as a result.

This caused the price of beef to increase by 17 cents per pound while the price of bacon is up 19 cents from September 2020 to September 2021, according to The Independent.

Farmers were preparing for a spike in demand for the holidays and kept their birds on feed longer than normal, but the price of corn went up, which also will cost consumers more.

The Department of Agriculture said whole frozen turkeys from 8 to 16 pounds cost more than 25 cents per pound more than in 2020, The Independent reported.

Dinner roll prices have also risen due to increases in ingredient prices. Canned cranberry costs are also up due to China’s limits on steel production and pandemic shutdowns in the U.S. on steel plants, CBS News said.

While prices may be an issue that consumers have to deal with, shoppers should be able to find the items they need for their Thanksgiving feasts.

“You might pay more for it than you want, but you will be able to find it,” Nigh told “Money Watch.”