Thanksgiving Dinner in 2020 And Other Turkey Smatterings

Since this year's Thanksgiving dinner may be a little different, we thought it would be fun to look at some of the numbers in regards to Thanksgiving.

First off, let's look at how the cost of thanksgiving dinner has gone up over the years. This statistic contains data on the average price of a ten-person Thanksgiving dinner in the United States from 1990 to 2019. The information comes from statista.com

The price has gone up a bit from back in 1990 to last year. In 2019, the average price for a complete Thanksgiving feast in the U.S. amounted to $48.91. The survey dinner includes turkey, bread stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a relish tray of carrots and celery, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and beverages of coffee and milk, all in quantities sufficient to serve a family of ten. Compare that to a price of $28.91 in 1990.

Turkey production has jumped up over 400,000 in the last 19 years. According to information from statista.com, the number of turkeys in 1990 produced in the United States was at 290 million. The latest info tells us that in 2019, those numbers jumped to a little over 270 million birds.

In information from cnbc.com:

"Overall, Americans consume about 40 million turkeys each Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation(the organization is also responsible for raising the birds for the White House’s tradition of pardoning a turkey) "

The article from cnbc.com goes on to say while this year may be different amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, many Americans are still planning to sit down to a turkey dinner.