Turkeys aren't known for flying but their prices are soaring ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
A September outlook report from the United States Agriculture Department estimates that wholesale prices for frozen turkeys will be $1.32 per pound this year, a 40% increase from 2024's average of $0.94 per pound.
The wholesale price is what retailers pay to buy items in bulk. Retailers then decide how much they want to charge consumers.
The reason the birds — traditionally the centerpiece at the Thanksgiving table — are getting more expensive comes down to supply. The number of available turkeys has shrunk in recent years amid slightly weakened demand and avian flu outbreaks, according to USDA data.
More than 3 million turkeys have been impacted by bird flu outbreaks this year, including over half a million this month alone, USDA data shows.
That translates to less turkeys: USDA forecasts that farmers raised around 195 million turkeys in 2025 compared with 200 million in 2024, a 3% decrease. To be sure, the number of turkeys in supply has been sliding over the last decade. In 2016, farmers raised around 245 million turkeys, roughly 50 million more than today's supply.
Deals abound
Amid the rise in wholesale turkey prices, several companies are floating deals in an attempt to win over budget-conscious customers.
Walmart announced Tuesday that it is offering Butterball turkeys for $0.97 per pound this year. The retailer also said its 10-person meal deal will cost under $4 per person. Grocery chain Aldi has offered a similar deal, at $40 for 10 people.
"Retailers typically use turkeys as a loss leader," David Ortega, a professor and food economist at Michigan State University, told CBS News. "That is, they price them very competitively — sometimes even below cost — to draw shoppers into stores ahead of Thanksgiving."
Both deals represent a decrease in the average cost for a Thanksgiving meal from 2024, which was $58 for 10 people, according to a report from the American Farm Bureau Federation. Frozen turkeys that year accounted for a large share of Americans' holiday grocery bill, at an average retail cost of $25 for a 16-pound bird.
Despite the surge in wholesale turkey prices in 2025, Bernt Nelson, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation doesn't expect consumer prices to increase much.
"We see that uptick right now in the wholesale price by about 40%, so we'll definitely see some price increases there, but I don't think they're going to go a whole lot higher above where they are at," he said on a Farm Bureau podcast.
"Higher wholesale prices for turkeys are likely to translate into somewhat higher prices at the grocery store, but the increase consumers see will probably be smaller than what's happening upstream," Ortega explained.
In other welcome news for shoppers, CBS News' price tracker shows that prices for Thanksgiving dinner ingredients like butter, milk and potatoes haven't budged much compared with prices the same time last year.
Edited by Anne Marie D. Lee
Turkey prices soar
Rising turkey prices impact on Thanksgiving
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