Turkey Producers Not Loving Thanksgiving

A study by the American Farm Bureau showed price reductions for the Thanksgiving meal, and the turkey in particular which is good news for consumers, but for producers it’s a different story.

USDA Livestock Analyst Shayle Shagam said that production has fully recovered from the flu outbreak in 2015, but demand is not keeping up and the prices as of early November reflect that.

“Frozen whole turkeys were averaging about 83 cents per pound which is about 29 percent below a year ago.”

Meanwhile stocks of frozen whole hens are up 22 percent from one year ago.

Shagam said producers are trying to adjust their output to make sure that prices don’t continue to drop.

“Egg sets, for both the beginning of September and October, have been down slightly from a year ago. Holds placed in flocks in September were down about a half a percent.”

But turkeys are producing more meat per bird, so production next year could still increase slightly, but Shagam is expecting prices as well to be up about two cents per pound.