Thanksgiving turkey prices skyrocketing amid supply chain, labor shortage issues
Thanksgiving is just three weeks away, and concerns are food prices are rising.
The issues with the supply chain and the labor shortage persist – and that means your Thanksgiving meal will likely cost more this year.
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The owner at Sho Nuf Turkey Farm in Fulton has plenty of turkeys for his customers this year – but things have changed since the pandemic, and prices have gone up.
"This year is costing a little more to raise turkeys. The inputs are what’s costing us more. The fuel inputs, the feed, feed prices have almost doubled from last year labor is going to cost more. People aren’t going to come to work for what they don’t think theyre worth," said Sho Nuf owner Chris Bohrer.
According to a Wells Fargo report, the cost of turkeys has nearly doubled since 2019 because of multiple factors.
The primary issues include, one, demand – people are having bigger gatherings and need bigger turkeys – and, two, supply chain and labor shortage issues.
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Production in many industries was put on hold or scaled back in 2020, and it’s all causing a ripple effect. That means, it’s not just turkeys, but most holiday food items costing more.
According to the consumer price index, the price of food has risen 5.4% from September 2020 to September 2021.
"What’s required in order to get food to our table include packaging and aluminum for cans and plastic coverings and CO2 gases to be able to preserve freshness so the interconnectivity of all of the product and the shortages we’re seeing in one area of global supply are manifesting themselves in other areas including what we’re seeing happening now in food," said Per Hong, a global supply chain partner at the consulting firm Kearney.
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Hong says he doesn’t see a solution to the problem arriving for quite some time. He believes this will stretch into next year and adds that this may not even be the worst of it.