Local Farm Optimistic About Smaller Turkey Availability For Thanksgiving Despite National Trend Saying Otherwise – CBS Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — With solely 17 days left earlier than Thanksgiving, we have to discuss turkey.

Is there a turkey scarcity? What concerning the value? All of that is the discuss of the barn.

“We’re have suspended taking orders proper now,” says Kilos Turkey Farm’s Beverly Kilos. “The estimations of Grade A turkeys to promote and orders are matching up actually intently so it’s finest to droop and never oversell.”

For the oldsters at Kilos, the run on their turkeys comes from the closing of a turkey farm close to Blairsville and a few media reviews that turkey was getting caught up within the provide chain points.

(Photograph Credit score: KDKA)

Beverly’s take, “I don’t assume so. In line with USDA, there’s there are about 1.5% fewer recent turkeys being processed this 12 months. In order that doesn’t sound to me like an enormous scarcity, and there ought to be loads of frozen turkeys.”

The grocery shops agree, however that doesn’t imply you’ll essentially discover the dimensions you need. Early indications are nationwide birds underneath 20 kilos are going to be tougher to search out.

Kilos says they’re bucking that development. Among the many 7,000 birds they’ll ship to Thanksgiving tables, they’ve the 10-12 pound selection, and never as many over 22 kilos this 12 months. Merely put, she says the birds didn’t eat as a lot. “It stayed a lot hotter this fall longer. They usually eat extra once they’re chilly.”

Nonetheless, feed prices have been up about 30% on the Kilos farm, together with larger packaging price and better labor prices. It’s a common downside throughout the turkey farming trade so we’re all going to be paying extra.

“We had a 40 cent a pound improve on our turkeys this 12 months,” says Beverly Kilos.

The grocers are reporting 10 to twenty cents and extra per pound will increase over final 12 months.

Backside line: you probably have a selected want – a selected dimension – store early.

And Beverly Kilos says don’t overlook that in the event you freeze your turkey, you have to a day of thawing within the fridge for each 5 kilos the hen weighs.

She says then add one other day on that thawing schedule simply to be secure.