This year’s Thanksgiving meal is shaping up to be “one of the most expensive” on record, according to a New York farmer who says the nationwide labor shortage is jacking up prices.
Fire Creek Farms in Livonia has been forced to hike the price of its holiday turkeys to upwards of $100 each — a markup of around $6 per pound, or 20 percent, from last year, said Jake Stevens, who owns and operates the farm with his wife Kyli.
Stevens said the national labor shortage, combined with spiking demand as Americans emerge from the pandemic, has sent costs soaring across the board — from purchasing the chicks themselves to the feed and the cost of contracting out to a local slaughterhouse.
“This year’s Thanksgiving it looks like is shaping up to be one of the most expensive Thanksgivings on record,” Stevens said in a phone interview.
“The consumer at the end of the day is going to have to literally eat that.”
And it’s not just turkeys. Americans can expect to shell out more for everything from canned cranberry sauce to sweet potatoes and other holiday favorites, supermarket executives and economists told The Post.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, which measures a basket of goods and services as well as energy and food costs, jumped 5.4 percent in September from a year earlier — and the feds specifically highlighted prices at grocery stores, saying that “all of the six major grocery store food group indexes increased over the period.”
Chocolate chip cookies are 8.8 percent higher from a year ago while bacon and sugar are up more than 28 percent and 9 percent, respectively.
Meanwhile, there’s little sign of those price increases slowing down before November.
John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain, said New Yorkers better be ready to pony up at least 10 to 15 percent more for their Thanksgiving ingredients — and that’s if they can find them.
Many of Gristedes’ main suppliers on goods ranging from dairy and frozen foods to other groceries have initiated “routine rationing,” SAID Catsimatidis, explaining that his stores are only getting between 50 and 75 percent of some orders.
It’s an industry-wide problem, he added, affecting supermarket chains across the region.
That will likely lead to spot shortages “across the board” as Thanksgiving hosts rush to stock up on ingredients as the holiday draws nearer, he said.
Some of the items Catsimatidis said his stores are struggling to stock up on include: Libby’s canned pumpkin, Martinelli’s sparkling cider, Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, smaller-sized turkeys, spiral hams and various pies.
Avi Kaner, the co-owner of Morton Williams Supermarkets, added that turkeys are up about 30 cents per pound, or 15 percent compared with last year.
Yams are up as much as 8 percent, he added, while nuts are up 10 percent.
There are shortages across the supply chain of various products, Kaner acknowledged, adding that his stores have ordered ahead as much as possible.
A variety of factors are driving prices higher at grocery stores across the country, according to Jayson Lusk, head of the department of agricultural economics at Purdue University.
There are “overall inflationary pressures” driving all prices up thanks largely to the pandemic-related government spending that pumped huge amounts of money into the economy throughout the pandemic.
But when it comes to agricultural products specifically, Lusk said that China’s been buying more commodities, driving costs higher.
More Americans are also dining out, meaning restaurants are then placing bigger orders and driving prices higher in grocery stores too, he added.
Meanwhile, meat processors and farmers are offering higher wages to try and staff up during a nationwide labor shortage, which also contributes to price hikes, Lusk said.
But the agricultural economics expert is urging people not to panic.
“I actually encourage people to be patient. Part of what’s happening is when people head out and stock up, that actually drives more shortages and more price inflation,” Lusk said.
“I think people can be calm and expect most of the items in the grocery store to be there.”
Additional report from Lisa Fickenscher
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October 29, 2021 at 02:19AM
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This year's Thanksgiving is shaping up to be the most expensive ever - New York Post
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