There’s plenty of poultry this Thanksgiving, but what about the problematic pace of processing plants?
Last year’s Thanksgiving season was anything but ordinary. As families Zoomed each other from across the country, the usual stress and chaos of entertaining aunts, uncles, and cousins was out of the question — for the most part. Almost a year later, people are getting into the holiday spirit and preparing to host larger parties, which means more food, more alcohol, and more turkey. But with festivities right around the corner, the global supply chain is still suffering from manufacturing, shipping, and labor issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When my mom called me two weeks ago in a panic about not being able to get a large enough turkey for Thanksgiving, I didn’t think much of it. I assured her that the backups in the port of Long Beach wouldn’t impact our 40-person Thanksgiving dinner in St. Louis. But, I was mistaken.
According to market-research firm IRI, supplies of food and household items are 4% to 11% lower than normal as of Oct. 31. This may be an issue for people trying to host large dinner parties in comparison to last season, when stay-at-home orders were still heavily encouraged to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. Finding the perfect bird could be harder this year because turkeys were over 60% out of stock by the end of October. Compared to the same time last year, the stock of turkey is lower by more than 30 percentage points.
This year, big companies like Butterball Turkey are experiencing processing line speeds that have “sometimes slowed by as much as 30%” due to labor and transportation shortage, according to spokesperson Christa Leupen. Because the demand for turkey peaks during holiday seasons, there’s less of an incentive to build more processing plants, and it’s harder to retain employees throughout the year.
Interestingly enough, it’s not a lack of turkeys that is fueling this issue. There’s plenty of poultry to go around.
Agricultural economist Trey Malone explained, “I don’t like the word ‘shortage’ in this scenario. It’s not like we forgot to start raising turkeys. What’s really happening is that you have these disruptions along the supply chain. It’s not because there’s no turkeys, it’s that the turkeys are in the wrong places at the wrong time.”
Perhaps, my family has more of a geographic advantage living in the Midwest. This may mean a larger supply of turkey at our local grocery store in St. Louis, but what about other Thanksgiving staples that are also scarce? Cranberry sauce, yams, stuffing, and frozen pies will also be tough to find. Grocery stores started buying these items earlier this year to avoid shortages, but that was hard to combat when ingredients were already scarce in supply.
I may not be a big supporter of the radio playing Christmas music the day after Halloween, but I think it’s safe to say that we might need to start stocking up on holiday essentials as soon as possible.
