Time was, Thankgiving turkeys were so numerous and cheap that you could waltz into pretty much any supermarket this time of year and get one for free with your big holiday grocery purchase.
If you feel like the classic free Thanksgiving turkey has quietly vanished from East Bay supermarkets, you are not imagining it. Holiday deals have shifted toward loyalty apps, points, and complicated fine print, even as turkey prices stay stubbornly high.
So we went looking for something that felt almost old-fashioned: a store where you walk in, do one big Thanksgiving shop, and walk out with a turkey that rings up as free on the same receipt.
As far as we can tell after checking the major East Bay chains, there is exactly one supermarket still doing that in a straightforward way: WinCo Foods.
The last simple free-turkey deal
WinCo is running a promotion this year that is about as simple as these offers get these days: spend a certain amount in one trip, grab a turkey from a marked display, and the bird comes off your total at checkout.
On WinCo’s own site and in current deal roundups, the offer is described this way: from November 19 through November 26, 2025, shoppers who make a single $125 grocery purchase can get a free frozen Grade A turkey, typically from brands like Jennie-O, Honeysuckle White, or Northern Pride.
The cost of the turkey itself does not count toward the $125 minimum, and there is a limit of one per family, while supplies last.
WinCo has reinforced the same dates and threshold in recent social posts, answering shopper questions about when the promotion starts and confirming that the free-turkey deal runs November 19–26 across its stores.
In practical terms, if you were already planning a pre-Thanksgiving stock-up trip for pantry staples, sides, and baking supplies, it is not hard to cross $125 in one cart these days. Hit that mark, choose a marked turkey from the freezer case, and at the register the turkey price drops to zero as part of the same transaction.
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Where East Bay shoppers can actually do this
For 925 readers, two WinCo locations matter most.
In Pittsburg, WinCo sits at 2400 N Park Blvd, Pittsburg, CA 94565, just off Highway 4. Listings show extended hours that run from early morning through midnight or later, making it realistic to knock out a big shop before work, after kids’ activities, or late at night when the aisles are quieter.
Farther east, Brentwood’s WinCo is at 6700 Lone Tree Way, Brentwood, CA 94513, and is widely advertised as a 24-hour store. That round-the-clock schedule is part of WinCo’s appeal for East County families juggling long commutes and youth sports schedules: you can chase the free-turkey threshold at 10 pm on a Tuesday or 5 am before work if you need to.
We know that’s a bit of a drive from the core of the 925. But getting your bird for free (and very low prices on other stuff, locals tell us) may be worth a one-time drive.
(There is also a WinCo in Tracy that many Tri-Valley drivers hit via the 580, but that one is technically outside the core East Bay for our purposes.)
Why these free turkey deals have become so rare
A decade or two ago, it felt like every supermarket mailed out flyers promising a free turkey if you shopped with them for the holidays. Today, you are more likely to see fine print about digital coupons, membership tiers, and multi-week spending goals.
Nationally, chains are still advertising free or very cheap turkeys, but the structure has shifted. Many offers now require shoppers to:
- spend several hundred dollars across multiple trips on a loyalty card,
- earn a certain number of digital points, or
- buy specific combinations of items like a ham plus a turkey.
Layered on top of that is the basic math. Turkey prices have been volatile thanks to factors like avian flu and higher feed and transportation costs, making a totally free bird a bigger hit to a store’s margins than it used to be.
So supermarkets have nudged their promotions toward encouraging larger overall baskets, tighter time windows, or member-only deals that also harvest data through apps and loyalty programs. Free turkeys are still out there — they just tend to come with more strings attached. Except, we found, at Winco!
What about Safeway, Raley’s, and everyone else?
We did a spot-check of the big grocery names that 925 shoppers actually use: Safeway, Raley’s and Nob Hill, Lucky, Grocery Outlet, Costco, and Walmart.
Some of those chains absolutely are running turkey promotions this year. Safeway, for instance, has been advertising free Honeysuckle White turkeys tied to its For U loyalty program or cumulative spending goals, including campaigns where shoppers have to spend hundreds of dollars over several weeks before earning a free bird.
And those deals aren’t open to every shopper–we grabbed the Safeway app and couldn’t find a free turkey offer in it.
Raley’s is leaning heavily into complete holiday meal packages and member-oriented specials, rather than a simple blanket free-turkey giveaway open to any walk-in shopper.
UPDATE: Readers have pointed out that Raley’s is offering free turkeys for its Something Extra members through the 18th. That means you need to hand over personal data to get the deal, which some people don’t want to do, but there’s no cost for the Something Extra membership.
So although it’s not the “walk in and grab a turkey” kind of deal you get a Winco, it is a more local option as long as you’re okay joining the loyalty program.
Grocery Outlet is offering deeply discounted turkeys — for example, Jenny-O birds around the $5.99 range with a $50 purchase in some markets — but those are low-price deals, not free.
When we say WinCo is the one supermarket in the East Bay that “still gives away” a free Thanksgiving turkey, we mean something narrower and very shopper-friendly:
A deal where you can walk in as a regular customer, do a single $125 grocery shop in that same week before Thanksgiving, and have a full-size frozen turkey ring up as free on that exact receipt, without needing a special credit card, multi-week points tracking, or a members-only coupon.
