Thanksgiving turkey insurance? Whole Foods and Progressive offering ‘protection plan’ for cooking woes

Whole Foods Market and Progressive Insurance have a new way to insure your Thanksgiving meal against those dreaded holiday accidents.

The Amazon-owned grocery store and insurance agency introduced Tuesday the Thanksgiving Turkey Protection Plan, what they are calling the “first-ever ‘insurance’ for the beloved centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal.”

To qualify for the “coverage,” you need to purchase a Whole Foods brand turkey by Nov. 22. Then, if you burn, undercook, overcook or commit another turkey fail between Thanksgiving and Black Friday, go to www.turkeyprotectionplan.com to submit a claim.

The first 1,000 eligible claims get a $35 Whole Foods gift card.

“As we anticipate more smaller Thanksgiving gatherings and first-time cooks tackling turkey preparation this year, the Thanksgiving Turkey Protection Plan allows customers the freedom of culinary exploration, knowing all is not lost should their cooking go astray,” Theo Weening, Whole Foods vice president of meat and poultry, said in a news release.

Millions of Americans are expected to have scaled-down celebrations amid the coronavirus pandemic, heeding official warnings against travel and large indoor gatherings.

This Thanksgiving comes at an already tenuous time for the $4.3 billion U.S. turkey industry. Thanks to better technology for carving breast meat, per capita consumption of turkey nearly doubled over the 1980s, peaking at 14.4 pounds per person in 1996, according to Mark Jordan, executive director of LEAP Market Analytics in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

But interest in turkey has been steadily falling, thanks in part to price increases five years ago when flocks were hit by bird flu. Annual consumption is now around 12 pounds, Jordan said.

Read more at usatoday.com