The Turkey Difference
Most of the leaves have fallen here on the farm and we’ve sent our last batches of hogs and beef to the processor…. We’re just about in off-season mode here! The big project that we’re focusing on now is preparing our pastures that we did hay on this year to be able to graze cows next year. This means getting winter water lines put in and getting electric fences installed. Emily is hard at work preparing for the big Turkey pickup day next Saturday… It's going to be a great event again this year!
We do still have turkeys left to purchase, but they will all get sold this week. I know right now the big decision is whether to spend the money and purchase a local turkey or buy a commercially farmed bird for the big meal. I talk a lot about our farming practices in these emails, so I won’t go into much of that… I think at this point you know what you’re getting with an Alden Hills bird (organic feed, running around out on pasture and humane treatment!). I do want to focus on the actual end product though…. Let’s talk about the actual meat that you’re going to eat with your family on Thanksgiving Day.
All meat displays a distinct difference when raised on pasture vs in a barn, but I think that turkey is one that displays a very strong difference. The meat quality between a grocery store bird and an Alden Hills bird is noticeable right away. Our birds are going to have a “thicker” texture to the meat… it’s almost like our turkey has actual noticeable meat strands and structure to it while barn raised turkey has a limp processed feel to it. I think the difference comes from having turkeys that can run around, be active and be in the sunlight.
The other big difference is the flavor, pasture-raised turkey has a much deeper flavor than grocery store turkey. This is due to the diversity of our feed… our turkeys are eating feed, bugs, and plants. Every year we get comments after the holiday… “I usually don’t care for turkey, but that meat was amazing. It didn’t taste like any turkey I’ve had before.”
One thing that we don’t usually think about is the timeline for turkeys to be processed for Thanksgiving Day. Last year I met a turkey processor from Ireland and it’s interesting because in the UK the big turkey holiday is Christmas… It's a very similar system in that it’s extremely seasonal and everyone wants a fresh turkey for the same day. This Irishman was saying that they start processing turkeys by the 10,000’s months before December hits for “fresh” birds. We don’t really think about the supply chain for getting a turkey on the table, but we should. Everyone is concerned about getting a fresh turkey for Thanksgiving, but the thing is…Americans will eat 46 MILLION turkeys this holiday and logistically those birds cannot have been processed within the 10 days before Thanksgiving. There are literally not enough hours in the day to process, pack and get those birds into grocery stores around the country.
Americans eating a commercially grown “fresh” turkey are either getting a bird that was killed months ago and was frozen and then is thawed sitting in the grocery store waiting to be purchased OR that turkey has been at refrigerated temps for weeks already (if not over a month). At Alden Hills we offer flash frozen birds that are all processed the week before Thanksgiving. The reason that we don’t offer “fresh” turkeys is because we don’t have enough refrigeration space at the farm! Most of our turkeys will be frozen for only 1-5 days before they’re picked up by you. That’s a pretty big difference than sitting in their own juices in the grocery aisle for a month!