Last Minute Thanksgiving Shoppers Brave Long Lines, Higher Prices And Some Product Shortages
HUNTINGTON BEACH (CBSLA) - On the day before Thanksgiving, people everywhere scrambled to pick up last minute items only to find, in some cases, that the lines were long and the options limited.
Whether they came for pumpkin, pecan or apple, dessert loves in search of Thanksgiving pies snaked through Polly's in Huntington Beach to pick up their favorites.
"Oh, gosh, thousands. Off the top of my head, I want to say probably around 4,000 or 5,000 give or take. We'll do at least...I mean, last year did about 1,400 in pumpkin alone," Nicole Barrile, the general manager at Polly's pies, said about the number of pies going out the door to customers.
Some families even went to so far as to buy an entire turkey dinner.
"Slaving over a stove like mom used to do isn't the way to go anymore. Sorry," said Huntington Beach resident George Ferncez.
A few miles away on Beach Boulevard, the line stretched out the door at HoneyBaked Ham. Most of the people standing in that line were there to pick up holiday food they had preordered.
"I preordered my ham. So, I thought I'd just walk right up to the door and pick up my 3 pound ham. However, I was surprised to see the line," Alison Yonkers, of Corona del Mar, said.
Shawn Lewton, a Huntington Beach resident kept things in perspective.
"It's not so bad. I heard Glendale was three hours long. So, I'm glad this is what it is," she said.
One thing most shoppers were talking about, it's what customers are paying this year for everything needed to make a Thanksgiving dinner.
"The prices are very high, it's incredible," one shopper told CBSLA.
According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, prices are up 14%. On average, a Thanksgiving meal for 10 will cost $53.31, which is $6.41 higher than in 2020.
Yet another issue some shoppers found themselves in was a shortage of certain groceries, things that are animal based like milk, butter and eggs.
"That's because of the wildfires in the northwest, they've destroyed so many of the soy crops, so many of the corn crops that is feed for the animals," the editor of Supermarketguru.com, Phil Lempert.
