We checked Raleigh grocery stores for the best Thanksgiving deals. Here’s what we found
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With just under a week to go before the nation’s biggest food holiday of the year, it’s now or never when it comes to planning and shopping for the Thanksgiving meal.
But inflation won’t make that an easy task for many.
Grocery prices last month were up 12.4% compared to a year ago, according to a US Labor Department report released last week.
And more specifically, wholesale turkey prices are forecast at 23% higher than last year, according to a report from Wells Fargo, thanks in part to the avian flu. Sharp increases in other items like eggs (up 32.5%) and butter (up 25.8%) only add to the dinner budget woes.
That’s not to say you can’t feed your family a nice Thanksgiving meal without busting your budget.
▪ Lidl, a German grocery chain with 7 locations in the Triangle, is advertising a Thanksgiving shopping list that gets turkey and trimmings on the table for 10 people for less than $30.
▪ Another German grocery chain, Aldi, is doing a “Thanksgiving Price Rewind” deal that gives shoppers 2019 prices on Thanksgiving food. This is a discount of up to 30%, the chain announced earlier this month. Aldi has 14 locations in the Triangle.
▪ Walmart has rolled back prices on traditional Thanksgiving items to offer shoppers a pre-inflation meal. The retailer says it’s offering “this year’s Thanksgiving meal at last year’s prices,” including whole turkeys for less than $1 per pound.
▪ There are also many food pantry resources in towns all across the Triangle that can help families who can’t afford to buy groceries, not just over the holidays but all year long.
Which stores have the best Thanksgiving sales?
But for those who still have shopping to do, we wanted to see which grocery stores in the Triangle have the best deals on Thanksgiving essentials.
The News & Observer’s service journalism team blitzed Raleigh grocery stores on Wednesday, price-checking a range of items that show up on many Thanksgiving shopping lists (we did a similar but much more expansive price-check of Raleigh grocery stores this summer).
Our methodology:
▪ WHEN: We did our research on Wednesday, Nov. 16, the start of the weekly sales cycle at most stores. This way, the prices reflected are good for the whole week before Thanksgiving.
▪ WHAT: We picked 22 items, including all kinds of turkeys, stuffing mix, fresh and canned versions of cranberries and green beans, potatoes, mac & cheese fixings, pumpkin pie ingredients and rolls. Our list doesn’t include every single thing you might need, but it gives you a good idea of what’s happening at each store.
▪ WHERE: We shopped 15 grocery chains, all in Raleigh. Please keep in mind that prices may be different within the same chain from town to town — or even within the same town, from neighborhood to neighborhood.
▪ PRICES: We went by the price on store shelves or weekly sales flier, and recorded the sale price as well as the regular price. Some stores offer special deals to customers who have loaded coupons onto their mobile apps or who have signed up for emailed deals. When those deals were advertised inside the store, we tried to include them here. For our database, we picked the lowest price offered at each store.
▪ WHEN COMPARING: Keep in mind when comparing some prices that not all stores carry the same types of products. For example, stores like Whole Foods, Weaver Street Market and Sprouts will only carry items that are organic or ethically sourced, making their prices higher. And some stores, like Trader Joe’s, will only carry a store brand version of an item, making it harder to compare their house brand canned cranberry sauce to the product made by Ocean Spray. Please refer to the notes at the bottom of the database for more information on the item pricing.
Follow the turkey
We know that many people look for the best deal on a turkey and then do all (or at least most) of their Thanksgiving shopping at that store — which is a good strategy because the best turkey prices we found required an additional minimum in-store purchase.
That was the case at Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Wegmans, Lowes Foods, Lidl and Carlie C’s IGA. We found turkeys for as low as .26 to .29 per pound at those stores, but an additional purchase ranging from $25 to $40 was required (plus a store loyalty card membership and sometimes a digital coupon).
We also found that there are a lot of different kinds of turkeys out there: different brands of frozen turkeys, organic turkeys, fresh turkeys and bone-in turkey breasts. For our database, if stores had multiple versions of the same category of turkeys to choose from, we picked the least expensive option.
Start searching our database below and figure out where you want to do your holiday shopping.
This story was originally published November 17, 2022 at 9:16 AM with the headline "We checked Raleigh grocery stores for the best Thanksgiving deals. Here’s what we found."
