Turkey

Annual survey shows a traditional meal with all the fixings will require fewer dollars per person this year. But look to shell out more dollars if turkey isn’t the only meat on your menu.

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins says the agency is hyper-focused on poultry, but no vaccine is yet available. The agency has ‘separate work streams’ to address the virus in the ‘cattle and dairy’ industries, but dairy is not part of USDA’s primary focus for now.

Whole turkeys may be losing their grip as the dominant center-of-plate choice for Thanksgiving dinner, according to the latest report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange.

As a last-minute shift toward small-scale celebrations upends demand for the star of Thanksgiving tables, turkey producers and retailers are scrambling to fill orders for lightweight birds and partial cuts.

As the frantic pace of harvest winds down, we can reflect on another season of abundant effort.