- Food prices for holiday dinners will be slightly higher in 2024, as meat, eggs, and butter see gains. Vegans, though, will pay a lot less this year.
Unless you live in an all-vegan household, you can expect to pay a bit more for this year’s holiday dinner.
The 2024 Christmas Dinner Index, which tracks the cost of the traditional holiday meal each year, is out—and shows an overall year-over-year increase of 2.4% in 2024. The accompanying Vegan index, though, shows a savings of 13.1% over 2023’s holiday season.
The study also includes the Gingerbread index, which is perhaps a better known barometer of holiday food prices. This year, it’s showing a 5.5% increase in the cumulative price of wheat, sugar, butter, eggs, ginger and cassia. Sugar (up 18.3% year over year) and egg prices (up a jaw-dropping 97.5% from a year ago) were the cause for the price surge, as wheat and butter are both cheaper this year.
As for the main meal, supply issues caused prices to spike in a number of categories.
Pork, for instance, saw an 8.3% increase compared to a year ago, while choice bone-in rib prices are nearly 12% higher. If your house prefers a boneless lamb leg, that’s 9.2% higher year-over-year. And shrimp will cost you 8.14% more.
The only main course that has seen lower prices is turkey, which is down 17% from this time in 2023.
Carrots are a lot cheaper, as supplies were plentiful, falling 19.4%. Other side items were largely flat. Potatoes jumped 1.6%; sweet potatoes increased 2.6%; and turnip prices were 1.4% higher.
While food inflation is not as bad as it has been, consumers are still frustrated with higher grocery costs. Those expenses have gone up roughly 25% since 2021, when pandemic-related supply chain issues kicked off steep increases.
Because most families make weekly trips to the grocery store, those price hikes make a big impression and are felt more closely than other types of inflation. In February, a report showed consumers were spending 11.3% of their disposable income on food.