Thanksgiving 2021 Projected To Be One Of The Most Expensive In The History Of The Holiday
STEVENSON, Md. (WJZ) -- If you're hosting Thanksgiving dinner, get ready to break out that wallet.
This year is expected to be one of the most expensive Thanksgiving in history. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting the price of poultry, meat, fish and eggs is up 11.9 percent over last year.
That means you'll likely be paying more for your Thanksgiving turkey. At Carriage House Farms, in Stevenson, they sell pasture-raised turkeys.
"These birds benefit from being outdoors. They benefit from the grass, they benefit from the worms, the dirt the whole nine yard," said farm owner Gaylord Clark.
At $7.25 a pound, the price reflects the amount of work it takes to raise them.
"There's a humongous amount of work that goes into this operation and it's extremely costly to operate," said Clark.
Over the past year, that cost has gone up.
"Feed is going up, the cost of fuel is going up," said Clark. "It remains to be seen if our process cost goes up but I would expect that it probably will."
At Sho Nuf Turkey Farm, where they are raising 20,000 turkeys, the rising operating cost has translated to a price increase for customers.
"Our pricing for retail went up almost 15 percent," said owner Chris Bohrer who thinks it's unlikely prices will come back down. "It's very rare. Most companies aren't going to lower prices after they have already raised them."
The side dishes will also cost more with grocery prices up 5.4 percent over last year. But Thanksgiving will go on with places like Carriage House Farms already selling out of turkeys.
