Shoppers worried about the cost of Christmas dinner will be relieved to hear that the most expensive item on the menu - the turkey - is unlikely to go up in price this year, according to leading suppliers.
The price of poultry is generally vulnerable to the cost of grain, and the price of turkey and chicken in the supermarkets is widely expected to go up in coming weeks and months after rises in the grains markets over the summer.
However, supermarket deals for most Christmas turkeys were agreed last spring, with big suppliers managing to hedge against price increases on wheat and soya - the key components of turkey feed.
Retail prices were ultimately set by individual retailers, said a spokesman for Bernard Matthews, which supplies own-label and branded Christmas turkeys to most of the major mults. “But as the UK’s leading supplier of Christmas turkeys, we don’t see significant cost rises in frozen or fresh birds this year.”
This view was echoed by Andy Lewins, MD of the UK’s second-largest turkey supplier, Cranberry Foods. “Consumers will probably be protected from higher prices on Christmas-specific turkey products,” he said.
However, away from the big-volume supermarket lines, turkey prices could still go up. Small premium turkey supplier Kelly Turkeys said its prices were not agreed in advance and higher grains prices were going to hit it hard during September, October and November, when Christmas turkeys eat the bulk of their feed.
“We will have to put up our price by 7.7% - or £4 a turkey - this year,” said MD Paul Kelly. “We bought some of our feed forward and hedged a bit - otherwise we would have had to put through a 10% increase - but there’s only so much we can absorb.”
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