Two weeks before Thanksgiving, grocers are paying about $1.80 a pound wholesale for frozen whole turkeys and advertising them for less than half that. Frozen basted hens of 8 to 16 pounds traded at $1.81 a pound in the week of Nov. 2-6, USDA market data compiled by Ohio State University shows.
USDA’s November supply and demand report puts the 2026 average for frozen whole hens at $1.77 a pound, 30 percent above last year’s $1.36. The holiday quarter comparison is tighter, with $1.81 forecast against $1.72 a year ago, a 5 percent increase. Tight whole-bird supplies and recent price strength drove the upward revision, USDA said.
At retail, the price on the bird has not moved.
Retailers hold the line on the bird
Target is holding its Good & Gather frozen turkey at 79 cents a pound for a third straight year. Walmart kept Butterball at 97 cents a pound, unchanged from 2025.
Amazon set frozen turkey at 79 cents a pound through Nov. 26 and fresh at 99 cents starting Nov. 14. Meijer, which expects to sell more than 1 million turkeys, has its own-brand frozen birds at 79 cents or less.
Some regional operators are going lower with a purchase requirement. Tops Friendly Markets has Jennie-O and Shady Brook frozen turkeys at 48 cents a pound with an additional $25 purchase. Lidl will drop Shady Brook Farms frozen turkeys to 75 cents a pound for Lidl Plus members starting Nov. 18.
Others are building value around the bird instead of under it. Save A Lot anchors a $39.27 meal for 10 with a 15-pound turkey at $1.49 a pound. Stew Leonard’s, the family-owned retailer based in Norwalk, Connecticut, expects to sell more than 300,000 pounds of turkey and reports its holiday prices flat or below 2025 levels.
Free turkeys reward the full basket
Loyalty and spend thresholds are doing the rest of the work. BJ’s Wholesale Club gave members who spent $150 in one transaction from Oct. 31 to Nov. 9 a coupon for a free Butterball turkey, capped at $25. bjs
The Giant Company is trading 400 Choice points for a free frozen turkey at Giant and Martin’s through Nov. 26. ShopRite ties a free holiday item to $400 in Price Plus spending between Oct. 25 and Nov. 26. Hy-Vee is running its buy-a-ham, get-a-turkey-free offer at all stores through November.
Meal bundles carry the same message. Hy-Vee and Lidl are both under $35 for 10 people, and Aldi is under $39 with a 16-pound turkey. Food Lion and Wegmans each matched last year’s bundle price.
Demand favors the whole bird
Scratch cooking is the plan for 59 percent of shoppers serving turkey, a 16-point jump, while the share buying a freshly prepared bird dropped to 19 percent, FMI’s holiday shopper report found. Only 17 percent of shoppers would cut back on food for the holiday meal.
The year’s sales data shows where shoppers have traded down. Fresh turkey sales reached $3.5 billion in the 52 weeks ending Sept. 27, up 5.7 percent in dollars while pounds fell 1.1 percent, according to 210 Analytics using Circana data.
Turkey breast took the hardest hit. Pounds dropped 20.1 percent as the price per pound rose 15.3 percent. Legs, wings and thighs all gained volume.
Supply is recovering but still tight
USDA now projects 2026 turkey production at 5.18 billion pounds, up 7 percent from 4.84 billion last year. Growers raised about 198.5 million birds this year, a 3 percent gain and the first increase since 2023, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Output still trails the 5.46 billion pounds of 2023. Cold storage stocks stood near 360 million pounds on Sept. 30, about 4.5 percent below a year ago and nearly 16 percent below 2024.
Disease remains the variable. AFBF counted seven avian influenza detections in commercial turkey flocks in October, affecting more than 250,000 birds. September brought 11 cases and about 545,000 birds in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas, USDA’s October outlook shows.
For 2027, USDA sees the wholesale average easing to $1.50 a pound, about 15 percent below this year, as production climbs to 5.25 billion pounds.
Where the basket has room
The rest of the holiday meal gives retailers some room. USDA forecasts egg prices down 29.3 percent for 2026 and dairy down 0.4 percent, according to FMS Solutions’ latest Pulse report. Fresh vegetables are forecast up 5.8 percent and beef up 8.7 percent.
Food-at-home prices rose 0.4 percent in October, the largest monthly increase since April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.