Why Thanksgiving isn’t quite as vital as it used to be for the turkey industry. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.
The turkey industry is less dependent on holiday whole bird sales these days. USDA livestock analyst, Shayle Shagam explains.
“The turkey industry has diversified in terms of providing more products, either in the sense of ground turkey meat as an option to typical ground beef or ground pork. They’ve made inroads in terms of providing turkey products for the deli case. So, to some extent the bird that we normally think of as being that center item for turkey producers has diminished somewhat over time,” he said. “We’ve also seen as families have gotten smaller, folks are moving to breast meat. So, there has been the typical whole hen turkey that we normally would think of as being the Thanksgiving driver of the turkey industry has become less, but is still very important.”
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Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.
Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She primarily reports on legislative issues and hosts The AgNet News Hour and The AgNet Weekly podcast. Sabrina is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.