The Thanksgiving Meal Price Wars are on.
With Thanksgiving looming in just over a week, Walmart, Target, ALDI and other grocers are competing for a place on your holiday table.
They’re cutting prices and offering turkey dinner deals and other promotions that are designed to tempt Americans who haven’t recovered from food price inflation.
“You used to be able to just come in the store and pick out whatever, you didn’t have to worry about it, but now you got to be more conscious with what you’re buying and the pricing on what you’re buying. So, it makes it a little stressful this year,” one shopper said.
Grocers launched holiday meal deals earlier than ever, and they hope shoppers will gobble them up.
Walmart is offering a 29-item feast, which includes a frozen turkey and ingredients for side dishes. It costs roughly $55. The meal is designed to feed eight, which works out to less than $7 per person.
Target’s version for four people costs $20 -- $5 less than last year. It includes a frozen turkey, stuffing mix and canned green beans and canned jellied cranberry sauce.
ALDI’s deal offers a frozen Butterball turkey with gravy mix as well as pumpkin ingredients for pumpkin pie and ingredients for side dishes like sweet potato casserole. It’s priced at $47, less than what it charged for the same items in 2019.
Comparing the respective menus to determine which represents the best value is difficult since the serving sizes and contents vary.
But the promotions underscore the importance of Thanksgiving to grocers.
“I would say the advice for the shopper this year is to be proactive. Shop around, look for the deals,” said Robin Wenzel, head of the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute.
For main Thanksgiving entrées and beverages, prices are easing, but given the spike in food prices in recent years, consumers may or may not feel it.
“National brands I think coming out of COVID when they were having to increase prices with the increase of a lot of the input costs, they have since come down to a place where things are normalized and they’re stabilizing a bit,” Wenzel said.
A 10-pound frozen turkey averages $10.40 this year, down nearly 19% compared with a year ago, but it’s still up 6% compared with 2019.
Other items -- like a 30-ounce box of pumpkin pie mix -- are up 6% compared with a year ago and nearly 70% compared with 2019.
In the checkout aisle, shoppers say they’re optimistic that prices are heading in the right direction.