Thanksgiving 2025 date: Thanksgiving 2025 dinner to cost 25% less this year, claims President Donald Trump. Is it true?
“I saw Walmart make a statement last night, they’ve been doing this for years, that this year’s Thanksgiving will be 25% cheaper than last year’s Thanksgiving,” he said at a press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday.
Walmart’s 2025 food cart is about 25 percent cheaper than its 2024 one, because it offers fewer items and different items that make it more affordable, the AP reported.
“It’s not apples to apples, right?” “What this highlights is individual retailers’ strategies to get customers in the door,” said David Anderson, a livestock economist at Texas A&M University.
According to Walmart, the 2025 cart costs less than $40 and feeds 10 people at about $4 per person. In 2024, a basket for eight people would cost about $56; which was under $7 per person. This represents a decline of around 25 percent, probably more due to price fluctuations. Walmart US president and CEO John Furner touted the savings in a LinkedIn post last month.
But the baskets differ significantly. For example, this year’s only contains 15 items compared to last year’s 29. Many dessert items are missing, including pecan pie, mini marshmallows, and muffin mix, as well as savory items like sweet potatoes, yellow onions, and celery stalks. The superstore retailer also substituted some products. The 2025 deal includes 12 dinner rolls instead of 12 dessert Hawaiian rolls. Both are from Walmart’s store brand. It also offers Kinder’s crispy fried onions, unlike French’s. Moreover, the quantity of each item also varies. Customers were promised a 10- to 16-pound turkey in 2024, with a 13.5-pound turkey this year. And they’ll get one can of cream of mushroom soup instead of two.
“They market it as, ‘Hey, this is a more affordable way,’ but that just means ‘man, some things are a lot more expensive,’” Anderson said. “I guess that’s good marketing.”
A press release from the White House on Thursday also touched on cheaper Thanksgiving deals at Lidl’s, Aldi’s, Target and Schnucks.
Target’s meal for four costs less than $20, about the same as in 2024, but with green beans and cream of mushroom soup instead of French bread and frozen corn; This isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison either.
Schnucks submitted a press release to The Associated Press stating that the retailer is offering consumers the lowest price on a frozen store-brand turkey in more than 15 years. He declined to comment further. Lidl US said it was offering its Thanksgiving meal at its lowest price ever, and Aldi said its price was lower than in 2024. Target and Walmart did not comment.
The cost of a Thanksgiving meal for 10 has fallen 2 percent to 3 percent since 2024, depending in part on whether customers turn to national brands or cheaper store labels, according to a recent report from Wells Fargo. This report was also included in the White House press release.
Some economists have concerns about the price of Türkiye. Purdue University College of Agriculture reported in late October that wholesale prices have increased 75 percent since October 2024, while retail prices are up 25 percent from a year ago.
An earlier analysis from the American Farm Bureau Federation found that wholesale turkey prices rose nearly 40 percent.
But that doesn’t mean every bird will be more expensive in 2025. Anderson explained that because some retailers, such as Walmart, place turkey contracts well in advance, prices for customers may be much lower than what the market currently indicates.
FAQ
Q1. Is Walmart’s 2025 Thanksgiving food cart cheaper than the 2024 one?
A1. Walmart’s 2025 food cart is about 25 percent cheaper than its 2024 one, because it offers fewer items and different items that make it more affordable, the AP reported.
Q2. When is Thanksgiving 2025?
A2. Thanksgiving 2025 is celebrated on November 27 in the United States.
