Interview question: How may turkeys were killed today?

100M households in the US. I am going to assume that everyone celebrates thanksgiving , and eats turkey because of how big of a deal thanksgiving is for the US.

Given Covid , the majority of these households will likely be spending thanksgiving on their own, or 70%. Let’s say that the remaining 30% spend thanksgiving with another household , or 15M combined thanksgivings, and 70M thanksgivings with one household. We will segment our analysis into those two thanksgiving situations .

The 1 household thanksgivings :
A household on average has 3 people , and a person eats about a pound of turkey . Given the older population distribution and obesity in this nation, let’s say a household needs about 4 pounds (which is higher than it sounds given some households will have infants /kids ) . let’s also say that households tend to buy more than they need for lunches and usually has leftovers , so let’s say 6 pounds are bought.

70M*6pounds = 420M pounds of turkey meat bought (I didn’t chose these numbers for that outcome )

For the two households thanksgivings :

It’s interesting , it seems like people tend to eat more when in groups , so let’s say a person eats 1.25 pounds of turkey , and that there are about 6 people in the two household thanksgivings so 7.5lbs of turkey consumed. Let’s say that since one household is likely cooking for friends/family , they will be liberal in purchasing patterns and buy 10lbs of turkey.

Therefore , these thanksgivings are consuming :

10*15M= 150M lbs of turkey .

Between both , situations , 570M lbs of turkey consumed . let’s round this to 600M lbs

A turkey has about 16lbs on average , so 600Mlbs of turkey = 37M turkeys . let’s say that more turkeys are killed because supermarkets can’t estimate demand correctly , turkeys go bad upon transportation, etc. Therefore 47M turkeys are killed today.