Walmart quietly removes items from its Thanksgiving basket — also reduces its price by 25%
Americans rely on Walmart to shop for their Thanksgiving dinners on a budget by making the most of its holiday deals. Every year, the retail giant offers a Thanksgiving meal basket that can feed 10 people for less than $40. It contains several elements such as butterball turkey, russet potatoes, stove top turkey stuffing, and Great Value green beans. This year, however, Walmart has secretly made some changes to the basket, and the tariffs could be a big reason behind that.
The Thanksgiving basket is a staple for several middle to low-income families during the holiday season. Everyone likes to eat well during this time, but not everyone can afford so much food at once. That’s what makes this basket so popular. But according to a report in The Street, this year, the Thanksgiving basket is 25% cheaper than last year and even feeds more people.
To make this possible, the number of items in the basket has been drastically reduced. In 2024, the Thanksgiving basket consisted of 29 items, while this year, that number has come down to 15. That’s almost half of the items compared to last year's basket. Some of the items that were reportedly removed were pecan pie, sweet potatoes, mini marshmallows, celery stalks, muffin mix, and yellow onions. Instead of 12 sweet Hawaiian rolls, it includes 12 dinner rolls this year, and Walmart has also replaced French’s crispy fried onions with Kinder’s.
It’s not surprising that the price of the basket is a lot lower this year than it was a year ago. The reason for this lies in the tariffs that President Donald Trump has imposed on imports. The American consumers are heavily reliant on imports for their everyday lives, and unknowingly, in many cases. When the tariffs were announced, there was a fear of everyday goods getting expensive. This forced a lot of middle to low-income families and consumers to check their spending on non-essentials. As a result, the businesses that cater to these individuals, like Walmart, had to take measures.
“We see more adjustments in middle- and lower-income households than we do with higher-income households,” CEO Doug McMillon said, before adding, “In discretionary categories where item prices have gone up, we see a corresponding moderation in units at the item level as customers switch to other items or, in some cases, categories.”
The Thanksgiving basket is an essential product for the holidays, and as a result, if the tariffs made it more expensive than in previous years, Walmart might have been left with unsold units. The company is trying to avoid that, and as a result, it has reduced the number of items in the basket along with its price.
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