Walmart CEO John Furner said turkey prices are down to 2019 levels, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos this morning that the price of a Thanksgiving dinner for ten will be “down 25% from last year.” “Our turkey prices are all the way back to what they were in 2019-97 cents per pound,” he said.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULO: Let’s talk about Thanksgiving first. Food prices are up-especially turkey. What are you doing to help customers keep costs down? JOHN FURNER, WALMART CEO: We’re really excited about what we have planned for this year’s Thanksgiving. I can’t believe it’s already that time of year, but this is a busy season, and people don’t want to sacrifice quality. We want to do all we can to help them celebrate the holiday any way they want-and to do it affordably, with a lot of value. A couple of things to mention: the Thanksgiving basket. We started putting together this idea of having an entire basket that’s easy to purchase and easy to assemble back in 2022. This year, we’ll have the best prices on that basket since the program started. We’re down about 25% from last year-that’s about $ 14 lower-which brings the cost to just under $ 4 per person when serving ten people. It’s a great basket that includes top brands like Butterball turkeys. Our turkey prices are all the way back to what they were in 2019-97 cents per pound. We’re really excited about that progress. Honestly, when the team brought me this, it was even better than I expected. So we’re looking forward to a great holiday season and helping people celebrate at a great Walmart price. STEPHANOPOULOS: How about President Trump’s tariffs? They’re contributing to higher costs across the board. I know you’re absorbing some of those costs, but how much will ultimately be passed on to consumers as they shop for holiday items? FURNER: Well, George, as you know, we sell a really wide variety of products, and about two-thirds of what we sell is either made, grown, or assembled in the United States. Our merchants have done a nice job balancing things out. This Thanksgiving basket is a great example of how we’re keeping prices down. Another thing we do at Walmart is our long-standing Rollbacks program, which we’ve had for decades. As we speak today, we have about 7,000 items on rollback, which is up about 1,000 from the beginning of the year. So we’re really focused on ensuring that across categories-whether it’s opening price points or our better and best quality products-we’re delivering the prices people expect. We’ve got the Thanksgiving basket now, and in a few weeks, we’ll be talking about the upcoming holiday season. STEPHANOPOULOS: A lot of American families are tightening their belts right now-borrowing more to pay bills, falling behind on credit card payments. Are you seeing any changes in customer behavior, and what can Walmart do to help alleviate that? FURNER: What we’ve been seeing, and we mentioned this at the end of our second quarter, is a customer who is very savvy. They’re thinking about value, they love quality, and they’ve been very resilient-both online and in-store. That said, they are looking for value. So we’re doing everything we can to be as efficient as possible so we can keep prices low. The two big things we’ve talked about today really stand out: – The Thanksgiving basket being down 25% from last year-an enormous reduction. – And 7,000 rollback items, including key products like our 50-inch Vizio television for $ 214. Those are great values that will really help families as they prepare to celebrate the holiday season.

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