Two weeks before Thanksgiving 2026, frozen whole hens are $1.82 a pound at the plant and frozen toms $1.88, the highest prints since USDA's weekly turkey report began carrying whole birds in 2022. Two Novembers ago the same birds were 96 and 98 cents. The price has nearly doubled in two years, and the part that matters to a buyer is that it did not spike into the holiday. It got there in January and stayed.
The bird never came down
The Thanksgiving cycle page explains why the whole-bird price is set months ahead: the industry raises and freezes birds through the year for one week of demand, so the buy happens in late summer and the holiday week itself is quiet. In a normal year that leaves a window. 2024 had one: frozen hens bottomed at 75 cents in December and sat under a dollar for most of the year. 2025 had a smaller one, 86 cents in February and $1.60 by September. 2026 had none.
| Frozen hens, 8 to 16 lb, FOB plant | |
|---|---|
| 2026 low | $1.68, Feb 13 |
| September 2026 average | $1.80 |
| Nov 13, 2026 | $1.82 |
| November 2025 average | $1.72 |
| November 2024 average | $0.96 |
The frozen hen printed under $1.75 in four of its seventeen weeks this year and never under $1.67. The 2026 median is $1.80 against 97 cents in 2024. Toms tell the same story a few cents higher: $1.84 in September, $1.88 now, against 98 cents two Novembers ago. An importer who buys whole birds every year put it plainly this week: there was no window to get them cheap.
Fresh, frozen and basted
Fresh hens are $1.84, a few cents over frozen, and close to their own 2022 high of $1.93 set in the avian flu autumn. USDA quoted the plain fresh hen in only two weeks this year against 28 last year. In April 2026 the report added a line for fresh basted hens, birds injected with a seasoning or broth solution before freezing or sale, and that line has printed seven times, within two cents of the frozen hen in the weeks both traded. The basted bird is the one most shoppers take home; at the plant it costs the same as the plain one.
The bird and the parts went opposite ways
Whole birds are at a record while the parts have fallen hard. Boneless skinless tom breast is $3.00 a pound this November against $7.24 last November, when it set its own record, and $1.96 two years ago. The turkey breast page has that market. For a buyer who handles the whole turkey complex it means 2026 is the year the whole bird is the dear item and the breast is the relief, the reverse of 2025.
What it means two weeks out
The bird you need for the week of November 26 was priced in August. At $1.82 to $1.88 FOB, the frozen whole turkey carries a record plant price into retail ads that are usually written to a loss leader. The ad price is the retailer's decision; the plant price is on this page every Friday. Watch the frozen lines in the first two weeks of December: in 2024 the bottom came the week after the holiday, and whether 2026 gives any window at all will show in those prints.