By Staci DaSilva
sdasilva@kcautv.com
Every Thanksgiving, your local grocery store strives to order enough food to fill your Thanksgiving feast. One HyVee store in Sioux City orders up to 5,000 turkeys.
Thanksgiving trails behind only 2 other days on the calendar when it comes to high volumes of traffic at supermarkets: December 23rd and December 24th.
But this holiday is a different kind of busy.
"What's unique about Thanksgiving is its very certain items. Where Christmas is everything, Thanksgiving is pumpkin pie, it's a turkey. It's very traditional," said HyVee Store Director Dan Vondrak.
To keep with tradition, grocery stores order items like thousands of turkeys, canned veggies and stuffing, a product that explodes during these few days.
CJ Hazelwood from Plato, MO is home for the holidays and said, "We thought we would have to dodge down the aisles and bob and weave and have to go to many stores to find what we needed but so far, it's been here."
"Right now we're just out getting last minute stuff that my mom forgot. We've already been out today, twice," said Renae Rouhoff, of Nashville, TN, also visiting for Thanksgiving.
But how do grocery store staff members order just the right amount of products? They keep records of every holiday, for decades, studying charts and spreadsheets like these.
"And then we spend a lot of time making sure and preparing for it. We have people that just do that all the time," Vondrak explained.
Every year, there seems to be one item that is popular at HyVee. This year, it's popcorn oil.
"There's a recipe out there. And popcorn oil just went crazy this year for some reason," said Vondrak.
Whether you're hopping on a new trend or sticking to tradition, here's to happy shopping and an even happier Thanksgiving.
