Families can rest easy and look forward to enjoying a nice, plump turkey this Thanksgiving. The turkey industry claims there is no shortage of the bird.
Media reports have said that there is a nationwide shortage of 16-pound turkeys due to higher feed costs facing producers. Butterball, the country’s largest turkey supplier, said it is having trouble filling orders for 16-pound fresh turkeys.
However, the so-called shortage is only occurring in a small fraction of the market, according to the turkey industry.
“There is no turkey shortage,” Keith Williams, spokesman for the National Turkey Federation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “You’ll be able to find a turkey, and you’ll be able to find a turkey at a good price.”
According to Williams, the “shortage” only applies to fresh turkeys, which only make up 15 percent of the birds on the market. Furthermore, the fresh turkey “shortage” applies to turkeys 16 pounds and up — meaning families will still have little trouble finding a turkey that is flash frozen or a fresh one under 16 pounds.
Furthermore, higher feed prices for turkeys won’t mean higher prices at the grocery store, Williams added. Higher feed costs mainly impact turkey producers’ bottom lines and aren’t translated to consumers since the market won’t bear the birds if they are over a certain price. Grocery stores typically have discounted prices on turkeys or find creative ways to give away or sell turkeys to loyal customers.
Federal policies like the ethanol mandate, or Renewable Fuel Standard, affect the price of corn and soy — which are used to make biofuels — hitting turkey producers hard.
“[The RFS] has put corn in competition with the feed grain,” Williams said. “The feed costs of corn and soybeans eats into our ability to figure out how many poults are going to be put in the growing barns.”
“The RFS does affect costs greatly, a lot of our turkey producers have gone out of business, our cost production has gone up — it’s feed,” Williams said, adding that turkey producers are using last year’s corn crop to feed their animals which were bought at between $6 and $8 per bushel.
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