The only turkey in this weeks Safeway ad is Butterball, 10-20 lb average, $1.79. (!!!) Our Walmart expanded to full grocery but I haven't shopped there and don't get their weekly special flyer. Our Top Foods is closing (the company bankruptcy) on Nov 24 or whenever they run out of stock. They won't have turkeys ordered.

I may be shopping out of town for the holidays this year.

I'll be on the lookout for a Honeysuckle White turkey breast again. Only has 3% solution.

I normally buyturkey at Bristol Farms (close to my house in Westchester), and it looks like they are $2.79 a pound right now. What I have bought there before has been better than what I've bought at other supermarkets, not including specialty butcher shops.

With the loss of nine million turkeys due to Avian flu, I would grab that 69 cent turkey. What other meat can you buy for 69 cents a pound?

Just bought two thin cut rib eyes today at $14.49 per lb. while they were absolutely delicious...you can consider that turkey almost free ;)

I haven't seen sales here yet, the Butterball turkeys I saw last week were $2.18 per pound, but they'll get cheaper, I think. I did just see news headlines that there might be a turkey shortage this Thanksgiving and that people should buy their bird early.

I like turkey, but if I can't get one, we'll eat something else. (shrug) I get mine from a local farmer, and haven't heard yet that there is a problem. I do pay appreciably more than 69 cents a pound, but the quality is worth it to me.

Annie

If I could get turkey for 69-cents a pound, I too would be dancing in the streets ;-). I "danced" just recently when I found pork riblets for 98-cents a pound in 5# packages and slow-cooked the whole thing into meat for carnitas (or other Mexican entrees).

With a $10/week meat budget, I've been saving for a turkey and don't expect them to be under $1 a pound this year, but more like $1.19 a pound and up. This is turkey buying information to determine how many servings per pound it will yield. I try to figure the price per serving, not just price per pound. I do the same thing when determining whether boneless or bone-in chicken breasts are cheaper and I have a math equation to figure that. I have charts that tell you how much waste to expect when purchasing bone-in meat. Although bones are never really "wasted" since I use them for making stock.

Turkey, whole - 12# or less - 1 (3-oz.) serving per pound

Turkey, whole - 12# or more - 2 (3-oz.) servings per pound

Turkey - bone-in breast - 2-3 (3-oz.) servings per pound

Turkey breast - boneless - 3-4 (3-oz.) servings per pound

-Grainlady

We have too many choices at our local market.

I've cooked for as many as 25 for Thanksgiving and we pull it off easily with minor stress....the problem i have is way too much food for a smaller crowd. Being mostly veggie eaters a small bird is fine. Still lots of leftovers for a sandwich and carcass for stock...

Our family serves turkey any time of the year if we have it. Birthdays, holiday, any time, we all like it

Sue

I buy turkey thighs to make ground turkey and turkey sausage.

For some reason we almost never see turkey parts here, like thighs or legs, and if we do they are about $5 a pound. Even necks are $3+ per pound. Ground turkey is also about $3 a pound, sometimes more. It's just odd that I can buy whole turkeys, but never turkey parts, other than the ever present Butterball turkey breast, which is also about $5 a pound, sometimes more.

Annie

Looks like whole turkeys here start at about $1.20 a lb. (Riverside brand) and go up to around $4.00 a lb. for the brand names, like Butterball. I've bought the Riverside brand any number of times, and we've found them to be very good. I honestly can't remember when I last saw them going for $.69 a pound! I'd be buying a couple at that price!

Rusty

A pasture bred, true Heritage bird would be worth the price. I have serious issues with modern poultry. Here's an interesting blog post comparing flavor of a modern bird with an in between cross of Heritage and older modern bred, otherwise identical. Reading it made me think that my choice of "white" in the white or dark thread is of for the free range birds we get, rather than the $.69/lb. factory bred which are probably bland.

I have to admit, I don't look at the price. I order the turkey and avert my eyes. :) I think they're around $4/lb.

I ran into Wally's real quick today and happened to see the Riverside ones ( frozen) .78/pd , I've bought these before and they were good. Didn't notice other brands at the time, I havnt seen .69/ pd in along time. I do remember when I lived in Ca. Once turkey's after thanksgiving on sale for 5 bucks per bird on any size at one market, I bought probley 5 to throw in my freezers

plllog, the year we raised turkeys, maybe three years ago (?), we figured a 15 pound dressed bird cost us $45 to raise. That is not including any time or labor, just the cost of the bird and the food to raise it to that weight. We bought 15 but mortality in turkey poults is high and we ended up with 7 survivors. They were not smart, and had to be "reminded" how to eat or they'd starve to death. They were friendly, though, and not aggressive, although dim-witted. Mine were Spanish Black, a heritage breed and I picked pin feathers endlessly as the black feathers left, well, black pinfeathers. I went back to buying locally raised heritage birds and just raise chickens for the freezer now, although I'm considering another batch of ducks in the spring, also strictly for the freezer, not as a long term poultry project.

That said, the local Meijer ad came in today's paper and they are running a special. If you buy $20 worth of groceries you can get the Meijer brand turkey for 52 cents a pound and Butterball for $1.09 per pound. Aldi has Butterball, no purchase required, for $1.19 per pound.

Annie

Annie, does your dressed bird price include the cost of the the ones that didn't survive? If so, that $10/lb. for a Heritage bird sounds right, yes? Gives you room to double the cost, and some extra for the cost of sales or distributor/retailer (in the hypothetical of selling rather than eating)? I've pulled dark pinfeathers. Ugh! I don't have the trick or nails to do it by hand, so I have to use pliers. And then I don't get the whole thing, and it gets worse. I'm much much better at grocery store, and I'm willing to pay for the privilege--nowadays pinfeathers are really rare. I've always wondered if they torch them, but the skin doesn't seem singed. :) I just buy Deistels. I'd be willing to pay for and cook a Heritage bird if I thought the family would appreciate it.

The $.69 a pound turkeys were at our Marsh grocery.

Sue

plllog, I misspoke, I raised Black/Gray Slate turkeys, not Black Spanish. That said, the poults still cost me $10.25 each for day old birds. I can't really count food, as 5 of them died within the first three days, so I didn't feed them much. Two more died the next week, and one died after about a month. I did factor the mortality cost into the cost of the final bird. When dressed, the turkeys weighed between 11 and 18 pounds and cost $45 to raise. 15 pounds was the "average" that we reached between one small turkey/one big turkey and all others were in the middle as to weight. So, that's $3.00 a pound just to get the poults and feed them. They require a longer growing period and they are fussy, needing light and heat, watching them so they don't forget to eat and starve to death, or drown by falling asleep next to the water dish. Mine got infectious sinusitis and required antibiotics, so much for organic birds. Even after they are big, you have to watch them. One was so dumb that he stuck his head through the fence and didn't realize how to take one step back and take his head out. He just stood there and screamed until I walked over, pulled him a few inches backward and he realized he was no longer "stuck", not that he ever was. They are, without exception, the dumbest thing I've ever encountered, although they were friendly.

So, truthfully, I'd say $10 a pound is a bit of a stretch, even for something as labor intensive as those bird brains were, but I'd have to charge someone $7 a pound, at least, to compensate for the time of plucking and cleaning as well as feeding, cleaning pens, rescuing them from the fence, etc. And, of course, I don't have to make a living. I probably spent at least 6 or 7 hours on each bird, so there's approximately 48 hours of work. At minimum wage that's $8.15 per hour, or $391 in labor. Divide that by the 7 birds and there's $55 a bird, plus the $45 to feed it and buy it in the first place. So, $95 if I'm only making minimum wage, divide that by 15 pounds and you get $6.33 per pound just to raise the things and that is if I'm making $8 an hour! More birds, of course, translates into less cost for feed/etc., so someone who raises more than a dozen could probably do it more cheaply and spend about the same amount of time I did raising my 7.

And, of course, you're helping to ensure biological diversity, something that I can't put a price on, plus you are hopefully getting a bird that's been humanely and sustainably raised. As they say, "Eat them to save them", otherwise they become extinct.

Annie

Annie, thanks so much for the breakdown. I don't know anything about current feed prices and all. I'm glad you gave a labor cost too. A lot of artisans forget to pay themselves. Few make more than minimum wage whether they're growing turkeys, making jewelry, sewing quits, or canning pistachio butter, but it's an important consideration. Perhaps I should get a Heritage bird next time and see if the family complains.... If nothing else, eat 'em to save 'em. :)

plllog, if you're buying turkey from someone who is raising them to sell, I'm only assuming that they are trying to make a living by "niche farming". Minimum wage isn't much, but you don't have to put on heels and pantyhose if you're raising turkeys!

Annie

LOL! True, Annie. I'm sure most people who do this do it for love. :)

I now have two just over ten pound turkeys in my freezer. $.69 a pound. They are not for Thanksgiving but just whenever we want to bake one. They are the Norbest brand.

Sue

Wegman's has Round Hill frozen turkeys for .49/lb with a minimum $25. purchase in the Rochester area and .59 around NJ where DD shops. Very good. I've gotten these for a few years now. Used to buy fresh but no need anymore.

HEB, which I think is just a Texas chain supermarket had Riverside turkeys on sale for 44 cents a pound, with a $20 purchase, when I was in there this evening.

$0.79 a pound for one and the other I don't appear to have gotten on sale? So I have to go back to the store and see if I can get a refund. Dang. If no refund, I guess it averages to $1.93 a pound. Still pretty reasonable.

Free here....if you buy a whole bone in Cure 81 ham....at $5.89 a pound!...Other wise more...varies week to week...$1.69 average. We are still feeling the impact of the loss of millions of turkeys and the quarantine of many turkey farms here.