That is their conclusion after including Friday’s export/import data in our calculations of US domestic per capita availability/disappearance/consumption for October.

Those numbers for each species, of course, are key items in determining the status of demand for each species and the news was good once again.

Real per capita expenditures (RPCE) for the four major species dipped slightly from October but remained above $49 in year-2000 dollars last month.

As can be seen below, that number is 6.8 per cent higher than one year ago and pushes the year to date total to more than four per cent higher than in 2013 at this point.

This calculation, if anything, understates the actual figure because CME uses USDA’s retail whole bird turkey price since it is the only retail turkey price that is available.

Based on wholesale turkey part prices this year, the authors are confident that a composite retail turkey price made up of breasts, drumsticks, ground turkey, etc. would make this year’s RPCE calculations look even better.

RPCE for chicken continues to trail year-ago levels but was closer in October than at any time since June.

October’s minus 1.8 per cent puts the year to-date change for chicken RPCE at minus 0.9 per cent.

The culprit is real retail chicken prices, which have lagged year-earlier levels by three per cent or more since May.