Fresh Turkey

[Bagels]

Albertsons had a sign that all remaining fresh turkeys were $5. There were two left, I don’t think they had many more to begin with. No turkeys behind that, except some overpriced turkey breasts ($14.99 each).

I always enjoy checking out “day after” overstocks. The stores by me did well - very few turkeys left, they will have to restock for Christmas/ New Year’s. Only a small number of pies, all marked to $1 at Ralphs. Albertsons had a lot of cakes/etc. that I’m sure will hit the garbage.

Every store I went into had an oversupply of rolls, Ralphs had them for 25c at one store - and there were dozens of them.

[storewanderer]

Albertsons had a sign that all remaining fresh turkeys were $5. There were two left, I don’t think they had many more to begin with. No turkeys behind that, except some overpriced turkey breasts ($14.99 each).

I always enjoy checking out “day after” overstocks. The stores by me did well - very few turkeys left, they will have to restock for Christmas/ New Year’s. Only a small number of pies, all marked to $1 at Ralphs. Albertsons had a lot of cakes/etc. that I’m sure will hit the garbage.

Every store I went into had an oversupply of rolls, Ralphs had them for 25c at one store - and there were dozens of them.

Went to two Safeways today- they have so many frozen turkey left you wouldn't even know it was Thanksgiving yet. One of them has the cases filled well above the "full" line in the case. That one had about 15 fresh turkey left too. So many yams and potatoes left, same thing, you'd think Thanksgiving didn't happen yet, at both stores I went to. The one with the cardboard displays of flexible celery and broccoli, took those displays down and the product is gone so they must have already disposed that stuff. Looks like they did very bad here for Thanksgiving, or ordered exponentially way too much, not sure which. Their pricing is so terrible I am not surprised they had issues selling stuff. Lots of markdown beef and pork at one location (including nasty looking brown ground beef) but no markdown meat at all at the other location. Given how Raleys and Save Mart ran such strong ads for Thanksgiving, I wonder if they had issues like this throughout NorCal or this was just a Reno/Sparks issue due to the sheer amount of competition in the area.

Went to another Smiths I haven't been to in a week and they had few turkey left; no fresh ones left at all. Mix of Honeysuckle White and Kroger so that means they sold through the initial batch of Kroger they received to fill the coffin as the Honeysuckle White was a later arrival as Smiths warehouse sold through its Kroger turkeys and had to get those Honeysuckle White ones last weekend. The other Smiths that had a lot of fresh turkey reduced, those are all gone now, so I guess they sold them. Produce areas were back to normal and not much extra.

Looked at grocery at one Wal Mart but not the other. Still a lot of turkey left there (but nothing like the Safeways). They had a display that must have had 200-300 pies on it, all still full price, many expiring 11/30 or 12/02. Lots of meat marked down in the meat case there- beef- with 11/29 or 11/30 expiration, some very large markdowns over 50% which is unusual for meat markdowns there.

[storewanderer]

One Save Mart in Carson City had a small assortment (~1 dozen) of Fresh Turkey at a .49 per pound price point. Including some "Mary's Gone Turkeys" ones that were previously over $4 per pound.

Raleys in Carson City had about half of a large coffin of "turkey parts" - fresh - prepack from Foster Farms- regular price 4.49/lb, 75% off. Hundreds of packages. All had expirations 12/1 or 12/2. Thousands of dollars of shrink loss coming for them on those. They had like 3 fresh turkey left also 75% off.

[ClownLoach]

Was at a Sam's I don't usually visit today and they had a case overloaded with their special fully cooked smoked turkey. Still $2.98 lb. They need to mark these down immediately. Last year the one I shop normally sold those out a week before Thanksgiving, but I'm in a higher income area than the store I was at today.

[HCal]

Anecdotally, I attended two Thanksgiving get-togethers this year, and neither one had a turkey.

I wonder if people are increasingly opting for other types of food and passing on this turkey tradition.

[storewanderer]

Anecdotally, I attended two Thanksgiving get-togethers this year, and neither one had a turkey.

I wonder if people are increasingly opting for other types of food and passing on this turkey tradition.

I could happily pass on it. Good riddance.

The stuffing does not need to be with a turkey anyway.

My (limited) view is this was a terrible Thanksgiving for most of the grocers. And by translation that also means for some of the food/drink brands... It will be interesting to see how their ads/promotions are for December.

[Bagels]

Stopped at two Ralph’s today. One bad Kroger branded turkeys for 25c/ lb, the other just 10c. At both stores, name brand turkeys were 49c. One store had a handful of fresh, fully cooked Butterball turkeys for a fixed $5 each. Neither store previously had this level of inventory on the floor…

One store had lots of other deals: Stove Top stuffing for 25c, Kinders for 99c, Kroger canned sweet potatoes for 99c, various brand cranberry sauce and canned gravey for 50c, etc.

We don’t usually see these fire sales until after New Year’s…

[ClownLoach]

Stopped at two Ralph’s today. One bad Kroger branded turkeys for 25c/ lb, the other just 10c. At both stores, name brand turkeys were 49c. One store had a handful of fresh, fully cooked Butterball turkeys for a fixed $5 each. Neither store previously had this level of inventory on the floor…

One store had lots of other deals: Stove Top stuffing for 25c, Kinders for 99c, Kroger canned sweet potatoes for 99c, various brand cranberry sauce and canned gravey for 50c, etc.

We don’t usually see these fire sales until after New Year’s…

The Ralphs I visited last night had a full island of Kroger frozen turkeys still priced at 59¢ a pound. At least two dozen birds in there. I didn't notice the other deals but I was only there for a few items. This was Murrieta which I've said for a while has been experiencing traffic problems due to road construction nearby and they're starting to make more obvious perimeter cut backs as they adjust to being a lower volume store. Meat was very lightly stocked with only two or three of each cut maximum. It didn't look shopped down. They removed half of the bolillo roll acrylic bins and left the other side of that cart empty. They also strangely reduced the Krispy Kreme donuts to half the cabinet and changed the graphic above to match but no racks of any product were in the other half. Deli has reduced assortment of meats and cheeses. Not sure why they're trying to run out their customers when the roadway is going to be done soon, that leads to a massive new apartment complex across the street that should be opening up soon and a large new housing tract project a couple of blocks North. They're going to turn off all these new customers and send them to Stater Bros who is swimming in traffic already.

[storewanderer]

Monday I went into one of the poorer Raleys in the area and could not believe what I saw. They had 60 fresh turkey there. Mostly the Raleys ones (which had been on sale .97lb, now tagged 1.99lb) and a few Diestel ones. They were 75% off. The Raleys ones had a $3 off sticker and the Diestel ones had 2 $3 off stickers. So the fresh turkey could come out around $7 to $8. This is thousands of dollars of shrink for a store that doesn't look like it can afford it.

Interesting this store had few frozen turkey left, a pretty small display for it.

Safeway in Reno and Sparks has hundreds of frozen turkey left. Huge center coffin cases are filled with them overflowing. They have updated signage to 1.99 per pound. All sale signs got removed. Also tons of yams left. So many yams. They built boxes out from the main fixture to pile all these extra yams... 1.99 per pound on those too, no sale or even effort.

Went to a few Tahoe Safeways and they didn't have much of any of this stuff left. Some, but not much.

[ClownLoach]

Anecdotally, I attended two Thanksgiving get-togethers this year, and neither one had a turkey.

I wonder if people are increasingly opting for other types of food and passing on this turkey tradition.

This is the first year I haven't seen any leftover rib roasts at Costco or other stores. I think that's becoming a more popular dish. It is usually more predictable cooking time and a lot easier to slice plus it won't put you to sleep. Costco does an excellent job of selling these prepped for roasting for only 50¢ more per pound, they put in a roasting tray and cut the bones away and stuff that with fresh garlic. Dozens of cloves of garlic, at least 60 or so with some other herbs. Then they tie it all down and apply olive oil and dry rub. For such little extra per pound they save the customer time and you probably couldn't get that much garlic for the price. They used to have a bunch of these prepped rib roasts leftover after every holiday marked down aggressively, I would go opening on 12/26 and get one. They sold out all of them before Thanksgiving this year and I do not think they cut back production.