Poultry experts talk up the benefits of turkey, push for better marketing

Turkey is often the overlooked protein by consumers perusing their grocery meat case – except, of course, for the Thanksgiving Holidays when the big birds take center stage. But, turkey processing is big business in Arkansas. The Natural State will rank second only to Minnesota in pounds processed annually this year, according to the National Turkey Federation.

Cargill Meat Solutions operates a large processing center in Springdale, employing 1,000 workers and running at full capacity this time of year, according to Mike Martin, corporate spokesman with Cargill.

“The Springdale plant will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2015. More than 250 million pounds of turkey products are processed at Cargill’s Springdale plant annually – more than 1 billion 4-ounce servings,” Martin said.

He said Cargill relies on 80 turkey growers in Arkansas and a few in Missouri to supply the local plant with the birds it processes. Susan Watkins, poultry specialist at the University of Arkansas, said the whole birds making their way into local grocers this week marked as “fresh” began their lives in the spring in Cargill’s hatchery in Gentry.

Watkins said this time of year the local Cargill plant and two Butterball plants — Huntsville and Ozark — are running “fresh” whole birds that range from 15 to 20 pounds.  

FRESH LIFE CYCLE
“The fresh season is dominated by whole bird production. Cargill started planning for Thanksgiving demand back in the spring with the number egg placements. The genetic selection for whole birds includes their white color and a balanced size between breast meat and dark meat,” Watkins said.

There is a 28-to 30-day incubation period in the hatchery. The turkey poults are moved to a growout house a couple of days after hatching, where they are fed a diet of corn and soybean meal to yield their final weights over a 16-week period, according to Watkins.

It is usually the hens that are sold as whole birds, while the toms are processed into cutlets, deli meats, turkey franks, sausages and tenderloins.

Fresh turkey signifies that it has not been frozen below 26 degrees and was recently slaughtered and processed. Fresh varieties sell for a premium as opposed to frozen birds.

“The grocer takes on more risk for handling these birds. There is a fairly short window to sell them before you smell them. Many times grocers require a preorder for fresh turkey because they will not want to end up with an excess supply,” said Dr. John Marcy, processing specialist at the University of Arkansas.

Marcy said the fresh birds are processed whole which is more labor intensive than traditional broiler operations. He said turkey plants employ up to twice as many workers as a chicken plant because so little of the processing is automated because of the heavy bird weight and the variances in sizes from flock to flock. 

On the large end, toms can weigh up to 35 pounds, where as a fresh whole turkey hen could be as small as 12 to 15 pounds.

Watkins said by Tuesday (Nov. 25) most turkey plants running fresh whole birds will shift to other runs because birds coming off the line after Tuesday won’t end up in a retailer by Thanksgiving Day. 

TURKEY CONSUMPTION
Watkins said the turkey is by far the most efficient of all meat proteins. It takes just 35 pounds of feed to yield a 16 pound turkey, and the grain they eat is not suitable for human consumption.

“When compared to growing a chicken we can get twice the amount of weight in a turkey using the same amount feed as an 8-pound chicken. Feed is 70% of the cost of growing a life turkey,” she said.

Despite the value turkey holds compared to other proteins, consumer preference for the meat is stagnant. Turkey consumption per capita is about 16 pounds annually, which has been flat since 2011 and declining from 17.7 pounds a decade earlier, according to the National Turkey Federation. Although 50% of all turkey consumed in 1970 was during the holidays, today that number is around 31% as more people eat turkey year-round.

That said, turkey consumption ranks a distant fourth at 16 pounds, behind pork with a 46.8 pound consumption per capita last year. Per capita, consumers ate 56.3 pounds of beef and 81.8 pounds of chicken.

Watkins said the turkey industry has not properly marketed their new products and are not pushing higher margin items like the chicken industry.

“I expect that will change now that Tyson Foods has acquired Hillshire’s turkey business. I can’t wait to see what happens when Tyson puts its innovation insights into Hillshire’s turkey operations. I look for there to be some innovative new turkey products coming down the pike. It’s been a long time coming,” Watkins said.