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Inboden’s expecting more nontraditional holiday orders

DeKALB – A local meat market is anticipating more nontraditional holiday orders this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to store staff.

Dusty Inboden, general manager for Inboden’s Meat Market, said Friday that there hasn’t been much of a difference in overall sales from last year to this year, despite the pandemic throwing some things for a loop.

“If anything, it’s picked up a bit,” Inboden said.

Inboden said people seem to have stopped hoarding products – including meat – compared with how much that was happening in the spring amid meat shortages in the wake of processing plant closures due to the pandemic. He said it was difficult to keep up with that demand before, but he thinks that people’s freezers are full now where they don’t feel as much of a need to hoard those meat products.

“We’re definitely seeing a few less turkeys this year, it seems like,” Inboden said.

However, the store stopped taking turkey orders Thursday because the turkey farm they work with is already at capacity, because only so many birds can be produced at a time, Inboden said. He said people also seem to be ordering earlier than normal and not so much at the last minute, and there’s more of a demand for smaller birds for smaller gatherings this year.

Because of that, Inboden said, he believes the shop is going to get a lot of walk-in orders for steaks, for example, in the coming weeks. He said it seems like more people want to do nontraditional holiday gatherings, with more nuclear family and less extended family, and perhaps grill food as opposed to creating a more traditional turkey dinner.

“If you have five instead of 15 people, it just makes more sense to do a steak dinner, especially with the nice weather outside,” Inbodens said.

Inboden said he’s not 100% sure whether those order trend predictions will come to fruition, though.

“Time will tell,” Inboden said.

Though there might be a few things you just can’t buy locally, Inboden also said he wanted to emphasize that it’s important for people to buy locally and support local businesses as much as they possibly can.

“The businesses in the local community are going to be employing people in the local community and … that tax revenue is good for town,” Inboden said.

Source: The Daily Chronicle

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