Retailers, wholesalers and food service distributors around the country are waiting with baited breath to hear about their Thanksgiving turkey orders. The bird flu virus, known more officially as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), is going to cause many turkey orders that would normally ship this month and next to be significantly shorted. The timing couldn’t be worse.

Calls to turkey processing plants about how bad the shorts will be are mostly answered with an honest shoulder shrug and a sigh and a “we just don’t know yet.” Many of the birds that are supposed to ship out later this month and the early part of November are still growing. Turkey growers and processers had hoped that the avian flu would have died off over the summer with the increased temperatures, but that didn’t happen. September numbers spiked significantly with 6.11 million birds affected, making the total 47.07 million birds affected this year so far. This number includes chickens also, but as you look over the data at the USDA APHIS website on the commercial flocks affected this year, you’ll see the incredible damage done state-by-state to the nation’s turkey flocks.

So, what do you do to be proactive about expected turkey shorts? I have some suggestions, and I’d also like to hear about your responses and solutions. Please consider these points:

If you’re a turkey processor and you know how bad the shorts are likely to be, let your customers know as soon as possible instead of being passive with the coming bad news. There’s still time for distributors and retailers to pivot to a different protein for Thanksgiving dinners if they get a quick and clear report. It’s only fair.
Distributors, retailers, food banks and traders should be actively lining up alternative protein options for your customers. There’s still time to book some hams, pork loins, beef roasts and other options.
Almost every meat plant and distributor has a frozen push list. Ask for it this week, and see what freezer deals you can find as alternatives. Show these items to your customers in the next two weeks with options for recipe ideas.
My best list of alternatives to the traditional Thanksgiving turkey are: pork roasts, hams, roasted lamb legs (these are easily found), lamb racks, beef tri-tips, top sirloin roasts, sirloin caps and beef rib roasts.
Many companies buy turkeys to give to their employees and/or clients. Send them a flyer showing them alternative protein options and try to find some lower-priced solutions. I think half bone-in spiral hams are a good option, as are beef tri-tip, sirloin cap and center-cut sirloin roasts.

The fresh and frozen whole-bird turkeys that do ship this holiday season are likely to be smaller than 18 pounds in size. There’s little incentive for growers to let the birds grow larger than this under the current circumstances.

Also, there’s nothing wrong with frozen turkeys that are in freezers that are a year or even two years old. I’ve eaten three-year-old frozen turkeys before that were kept solid frozen and had great packaging and they tasted just fine. Find out if any of your suppliers have any of last year’s freezer inventory in stock.

I feel really bad for the turkey growers and plants that have lost so many birds and so much revenue this year. I don’t envy the sales teams that have to figure out how to allocate the birds they do have. There are bound to be lots of unhappy customers, and it’s not anyone’s fault. Please be kind if you find yourself disappointed.

If you have any advice that could potentially help, please offer it.

What proactive solutions have you come up with for this year’s turkey shortages?

Will this be a no-turkey Thanksgiving?

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