Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 22, 1995 TAG: 9511220078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIM I. MILLS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Thanksgiving dinner may wing Americans for a little extra money this year, thanks largely to an increase in the cost of the meal's star: the turkey.
In fact, most items on the traditional menu are up, says the American Farm Bureau, which issued its annual Thanksgiving survey Tuesday.
It found increases in almost every item on its list, no change for a handful and a decrease in only one: A gallon of whole milk was $2.29 this year, down a penny from 1994.
The bureau calculated that a traditional holiday meal for 10 - including turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie and what it considers all the trimmings - will cost $29.64. That's $1.24 more than last year.
But the farm bureau isn't exactly serving soup to nuts. And 1.1 dinner rolls may not be everyone's idea of Thanksgiving bounty. (That one package of brown 'n' serve rolls costs $1.24, up 15 cents from last year.)
While the bureau did price fresh cranberries - $1.95 for a 12-ounce package, up 9 cents from last year - it didn't take into account the fresh orange juice and slivered almonds Aunt Zelda uses in her recipe.
It also priced just one 14-ounce package of stuffing ($2.39, up 13 cents), and nothing exotic like sausage, oysters or dried apricots in it.
And did we mention the absence of mini-marshmallows for the sweet potatoes, and the obligatory casserole of green beans, mushroom soup and onion rings? And if you eat at the farm bureau's house, don't ask for anything to drink besides milk or coffee.
As for turkeys, at 79 cents per pound, the average cost of a 16-pound tom was $12.68, an increase of 67 cents compared with last year, the farm bureau found.
But none of this seemed to faze shoppers, who were loading up their carts pretty much without regard to the bottom line Tuesday.
Paula Ackerman of Washington, D.C., rooted around in the meat case at her neighborhood supermarket, looking for just the right bird. Although it'll just be herself and her son for dinner Thursday, she picked out an 18-pounder.
``I don't even look at the prices,'' she said.
Moments later, Maxine Legall wheeled up and chose a turkey half that size, saying her family was making do with less because she'd just spent almost a week furloughed from her federally funded job.
``Because of price, we're not having so many people over this year,'' she said. ``So far, it's just the four of us.''
The highest turkey price on the farm bureau's survey was $1.19 a pound, paid by shoppers in Indiana and Ohio. The lowest was 38 cents a pound, also in Ohio.
But shoppers in Ohio didn't seemed troubled by turkey prices. At a supermarket near Columbus, Thelma Huff said she wanted a fresh, 18-pound, name-brand turkey and was willing to pay $1.39 per pound. When there was none to her specifications, she chose a name-brand frozen turkey for 99 cents per pound rather than a generic fresh for 89 cents per pound.
by CNB