Americans will be paying more for their Thanksgiving turkeys this month after rising feed costs led to reduced output in the U.S.
U.S. wholesale, frozen turkeys jumped to $1.09 a pound on average yesterday, the highest price ever and up 28 percent from a year earlier, according to Russell Whitman, the vice president of the poultry division at commodity researcher Urner Barry in Toms River, New Jersey.
At the end of September, stockpiles of turkey meat slid 23 percent from a year earlier, government data show. Production will decline 1.3 percent this year to 5.514 billion pounds (2.5 million metric tons), the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Nov. 9. Before today, the price of corn, which makes up about 70 percent of turkey feed, was up 47 percent in the past year.
“The fundamental reason why you’re seeing record-high turkey prices is the fact we’re seeing record-high costs of raising turkeys,” said Tom Elam, president of FarmEcon LLC, an agriculture and food-industry consultant in Carmel, Indiana. “When both stocks are down and production is down, then you get a double hit on the amount available to be consumed.”
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