Tough turkey? Cautious optimism on supply heading into holidays

You may have to hunt around at a few grocery stores to find the right bird this holiday season.

That comes as transportation problems continue to plague connections between the province’s agricultural hub and the Interior.

“That’s probably the biggest challenge right now,” Michel Benoit told Kelowna10. “But we still have 25 days before Christmas and so we are going to work really hard to make sure that turkeys that are supposed to go [to the Okanagan], make their way there.”

The Lower Mainland is home to nearly all 64 British Columbia turkey farms. There are just two in the Okanagan. The general manager with the BC Turkey Marketing Board said about two per cent of the province’s production is impacted by the flooding disaster. Barring a significant expansion of the evacuation zone, he does not expect any more farms to be disturbed. The region is responsible for about 13 per cent of Canada’s total output.

“If Highway 3 stays open between now and Christmas, I think there will be turkey for sure,” he said.

Kelowna10 contacted half a dozen grocery stores and just one had a consignment of turkeys in freezers.

Benoit said work is ongoing with providers to ferry birds where they need to be. Because turkeys are supply managed in Canada, Benoit said in the face of crisis, the entire value chain works much more collaboratively to do what is best for the industry.

But transport tangles are not the only problem plaguing producers. Feed costs have soared thanks to a summer drought on the Prairies devastating wheat crops. Supply is incredibly low, pumping up prices.

“That has put some economic pressure on our farmers and has been a challenge,” he said, resulting in higher prices per pound. “That is an unfortunate one. We never like to do that. We always try to be as cost efficient as we can but that is a cost that we cannot absorb going forward.”

And while grocery bills continue to rise in the face of inflation, especially on the butcher block, turkeys may not fall to the same fate this holiday season.

Benoit said it’s become commonplace for B.C. grocers to make the birds loss leaders at this time of year. This sees frozen turkeys sold below cost, encouraging shoppers to pick up the mainstay at a discount and spend money down other aisles.

“I’m not sure what the retailers are going to do, this year,” he said. “But … at least for the last 20 years, the price we have seen for Christmas turkeys, for frozen turkeys, has usually been below what the store has bought them for.”