Americans are eating less turkey, even as the birds keep getting bigger

The whole thing is sad. I don't blame them for getting hammered. No respect, no future. Unwanted and unloved.

Americans are eating less turkey, even as the birds keep getting bigger

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Turkey season is back, and so is the price war for another inflation-squeezed Thanksgiving. Last month, Walmart rolled out its cheapest turkey deals since 2019, offering a 10-person holiday meal for under $40; Aldi announced a similar $40 package, while Kroger joined in with a bundle priced at under $4.75 per person.

So, how are holiday meals staying cheap when everything else is going up?

Retailers are absorbing much of the turkey costs — a classic “loss leader” to draw cost-conscious shoppers in — even as wholesale turkey prices are expected to rise 40% year over year in 2025, per the USDA. Part of that jump reflects a supply crunch, with production now at a 40-year low amid an avian flu wave that’s wiped out more than 2.2 million birds this year.

Zooming out, however, America’s turkey problems started long before the latest outbreak.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, per-capita turkey consumption in the US nearly doubled after it gained popularity as a leaner alternative to red meat. However, consumption has dropped 25% since peaking in 1996, while chicken, pork, and beef continue to dominate. With turkey demand down — whether that's because it’s too hard to cook, too big for everyday meals, or there are simply tastier cold cuts available production followed suit, slipping to a 30-year low last year.

Ironically, despite shrinking appetites, the birds themselves have been growing. The average turkey now weighs about 32 pounds, nearly double the figure from 1960, per USDA data. While decades of selective breeding and artificial insemination created today’s “meatier” (and more profitable) birds, it also produced an unintended side effect: the modern supersized turkey, which accounts for 99% of those sold in grocery stores, is disease-prone, biologically fragile, and increasingly hard to breed.