Meat + Poultry - January 2016 - 38

POULTRY PROCESSING

TURKEY
TURNAROUND
"Brace yourself for a
Thanksgiving turkey shortage."
"Talking turkey: Bird flu may
bite supplies this Thanksgiving."
Those were just two of the
headlines warning consumers
that they might not be able
to secure turkeys for their
Thanksgiving dinners this past
year because of the highly
pathogenic avian influenza
outbreak last spring on many
Midwest turkey farms, which
led to more than 7 million
birds being destroyed.
But Joel Brandenberger,
executive director of the
National Turkey Federation
(NTF), said the "Thanksgiving
turkey shortage" was the
biggest non-news story of
the season.
"[The turkey supply] was
never in doubt," he added.
Brandenberger understands why
the general media reported a
potential shortage. "But at the
end of the day, [the turkeys
lost to AI] represented about
3 percent of the anticipated
production for the year," he said.
There was anguish, but the
industry stayed focused,
Brandenberger said.
"The farms are back up and
producing. The infrastructure
in the breeder industry is
beginning to recover. It's
a resilient industry. It's an
industry that can adapt and
adapt quickly," he added.

38

In addition, two boards were developed to
assist with the initiative: a culinary advisory
board, which includes chefs from Applebee's,
Red Robin, Wendy's and Chili's; and a nutrition
advisory board.
Cooper says another vital component to
the program's overall success, from planning
to implementation, is the initiative's Turkey
Demand Enhancement Team (TDET),
comprised of about 50 industry marketing,
sales and allied members.
What the initiative has going for it is that
most consumers already recognize that turkey
is healthy. "We might not need to spend a lot of
time promoting that," Cooper says.
But many consumers might not realize that
turkeys are not raised in cages. Considering the
hot topic this issue has become in the meat and
poultry industry, it has become a large part of
the initiative's educational goals.
The initiative's steering committee has
also contracted with a social media agency
to monitor chatter about turkey online. The
group's aim is to answer questions about
turkey, from the way turkeys are grown to
offering recipes for new dishes.
Companies, of course, will have to do their
part. Cooper says they have to do a better job
of offering turkey in different ways, including
portion control, so it's more versatile. To do so,
processors must have the right equipment in
place, Cooper says.
The good news is the equipment is available
because the chicken industry is already
offering such products. But turkey processors
must have the space for the equipment in
their plants and must be willing to invest in it,
Cooper adds.

BEYOND THANKSGIVING
Turkey companies will never take
Thanksgiving for granted, considering that 40
percent of consumption occurs on that holiday.
Not that marketing whole birds has become
a burden, but companies are ready to spread
their wings with new products and new ways
to increase consumption.
"It's about preserving the gains that we
have made and expanding into areas where we
haven't been before," Brandenberger says.
For whatever reasons, many consumers
don't know the value that turkey can bring to
the table outside of Thanksgiving, says John

MEAT+ POULTRY | 01.16 | www.meatpoultry.com

Reicks, vice president of internal operations
for Tyson Foods Inc., which processes about
318 million lbs. of turkey annually.
"It's really time to take turkey to a
different place," adds Reicks, who assumes
chairmanship of NTF in February.
Opportunities abound for new turkey
products, Cooper says. "I've experienced a
number of new turkey products that I didn't
even know were out there," he adds.
Cooper discovered a Southern restaurant
chain, PDQ, that serves a crispy, breaded
turkey sandwich. "How many restaurants offer
a breaded chicken sandwich? Hordes, right? So
why not a breaded turkey sandwich?" Cooper
asks. "I had it, and it was really good."

'COOPETITION'
The 20 by 2020 initiative may be unprecedented
for NTF, considering that it requires companies
to contribute funds to work as a team. In the
past, companies spent their marketing dollars
on their own programs.
Cooper has instituted the word
"coopetition" - a combination of "cooperation"
and "competition" - as a theme for 20 by 2020.
He advocates collaboration between business
competitors to achieve mutually beneficial
results. He also wants them to compete
directly to drive consumption.
Reicks, who says the initiative has brought
turkey processors together, has embraced
coopetition. "Without it we are doomed to fail,"
he adds. "We're not doing this for one company.
It's about what we can all do with turkey - not
just what [one company] can do."
In his eight years in the turkey industry,
Reicks says he has never seen so much
excitement or support for a project. Still, there
are challenges. One is highly pathogenic avian
influenza (AI). An outbreak last spring on many
Midwest turkey farms led to more than
7 million birds being destroyed.
"The biggest setback that could happen
did happen with that AI," Wittenburg says. "It
grossly affected industry supply."
Cooper says consumption may actually
contract in 2015 to 15.3 lbs. per person because
of the turkey shortage attributed to AI. Turkey
companies like Cooper Farms couldn't supply
some of their smaller companies and even had
to limit supplies to their bigger customers. The
industry enters 2016 with the lowest supply of
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