Turkey

Turkey is a smaller export line than chicken and it runs on a different calendar, which is the first thing to understand about it.

Whole birds sell into Southeast Asia largely as a year-end product, and demand that arrives in a window has to be contracted well ahead of it. Production is planned against Canadian and American seasonal demand first, so a buyer who opens the conversation in the autumn is usually too late for that year. This is the single most common reason a turkey programme fails to happen.

Breast is the value centre and sells into two different destinations: retail whole muscle, and further processing into deli product. The specification questions are bone-in or boneless, skin-on or skinless, the weight band, and above all whether the product carries added solution, which changes both the cooking behaviour and the quantity of meat in a kilogram.

Trim is a manufacturing input bought on lean percentage with a tolerance, and turkey trim is not interchangeable with chicken trim in a formulation.

Turkey eligibility for a destination is confirmed separately and is not implied by chicken approval. Production is concentrated in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta, and is supply-managed.