Thanksgiving foods: Which years have been the most plentiful?

Thanksgiving weekend is upon us, and you know we’re once again bringing a plateful of data squares for dessert.

This year, we thought we’d switch it up and have a look back in time. Our annual food availability program measures the amount of food available for consumption in Canada per person, and the data go as far back as 1960 for many of the nearly 200 commodities we track.

Our latest data are for 2022 and were released this past spring. Let’s have a look at some classic Thanksgiving food items!

Turkey

We have to start off with the centrepiece of many menus, which is the bird. For the all-time high amount of turkey available for consumption, you’d have to go back to 1967, when there were 3.72 kg of turkey (boneless retail weight) available per person. It was a bountiful Thanksgiving during the Centennial year!

The amount of turkey available per Canadian in 2022 (2.64 kg) is the second-lowest amount on record, behind only 1960 (2.27 kg), when we first started tracking turkey.

If we gobble further into the numbers, Canada has been producing fewer turkeys—the Census of Agriculture counted 8.4 million of them in 2016 and 6.1 million in 2021.

Potatoes

The availability of white fresh potatoes has fluctuated, from a high of 42.68 kg per Canadian in 1997 to a low of 15.93 kg in 2014. In 2022, there were 32.37 kg available per Canadian.

The most plentiful year for sweet fresh potatoes was 2011, when 1.51 kg were available per person. In 2022, it was 1.08 kg, more than four times the 0.24 kg available in 1960.

Salad

We’re watching you: don’t skip the salad before making your mashed potatoes-gravy volcano (don’t lie, we all do it!). The most plentiful year for fresh lettuce was in 2002, when 11.70 kg were available per person—more than double the 5.19 kg available in 1960.

Fresh tomato availability hasn’t stretched much in either direction, from a high of 8.59 kg per person in 2014 to a low of 5.43 kg in 1972.

Most recently, in 2022, availability of fresh lettuce was 7.90 kg per Canadian and that of tomatoes was 7.49 kg.

Pumpkins and squash

We track these two Thanksgiving staples together. Their best year was 2014, when 3.76 kg of pumpkins and squash were available per Canadian. This amount has since declined to 2.88 kg in 2022, but remains considerably higher than the 0.17 kg available in 1978, when we started tracking them.

Cranberries

No other Thanksgiving dinner staple mentioned in this story has seen its availability increase more (as a percentage) than fresh cranberries, so double that sauce recipe! The all-time high of 3.93 kg per Canadian was reached in 2022, nearly 36 times the 0.11 kg available in 1960.

Dessert

Probably the best year for apple pie was 1994, when an all-time high of 13.95 kg of fresh apples were available per Canadian. However, that same decade had lower availability of fresh blueberries—you’d have to jump to 2021 for it to reach 1.86 kg available per person.

The availability of wheat flour has been more consistent—the 59.19 kg available per Canadian in 1960 was roughly equal to 2022 (59.21 kg). The all-time low was seen in 1964 (51.30 kg per person), while the record high was observed in 2002 (67.92 kg per person).

As for the key ingredient in sugar pie, or any other dessert, the sweet peak was reached in 1973, when there were 46.34 kg of refined sugar available per Canadian. An all-time low of 30.03 kg was recorded in 2018, and the availability has since increased to 30.57 kg in 2022.

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!