Livestock
18 December, 2024
Free range turkey demand spikes as consumers seek healthier Christmas feast
A lifetime with turkeys set one Dadswells Bridge farmer apart.
Free range turkey farmers have seen an uptick in demand this Christmas with more consumers wanting a better-quality bird.
Daryl Deutscher, 74, Deutscher's Turkey Farm, Dadswells Bridge, has been in the game since he was 16 and said it was only going one way.
He will produce 7000 turkeys this year with 75 per cent of the supply aimed at the Christmas market.
This week, he and his team of five staff would be rushing to process stock for the biggest week of the year.
"We've been really busy and supplying a lot more customers along the way so it's been a very, very busy year," he said.
"We sell turkey every week of the year nearly, down to markets in Melbourne, the portions, but probably 75 per cent of the year's production goes out at Christmas time - October, November, December - for the Christmas market."
Mr Deutscher said his was one of only a few large free range turkey operations in the country with 90pc of Australia's supply mass-produced on two NSW farms.
However, he said this was changing as more consumers were thinking about what they were buying.
"It's amazing really," he said.
"People are wanting a niche product that's not mass produced."
The cost difference could be quite stark at $100 for the niche product and $40 for the same size product in supermarkets.
"That's the interesting piece - 50pc of people are going to buy the cheapest, 50pc want to buy quality," Mr Deutscher explained.
"Every turkey here, every breast fillet, every whole turkey, it goes through my hands before it goes into the cooler or gets packed."
He said turkey meat was lean, high in protein and low in saturated fats, and therefore it was becoming more popular.
"It's heading that way," he said.
"Whole turkey probably waning a little bit and cut up portions are taking more precedence."
Half of his turkeys, all the males or 'gobblers', were now processed into portions.
Hens were more often processed and sold as a whole bird.
Mr Deutscher had created a further niche in the market with rare turkey varieties, some of which could be found nowhere else in the world.
He said these birds had more flavour, more keratin, and their skins which were a bit thicker, protecting the meat when cooking.
He was a self-confessed "turkey person" and loved working with the birds due to their character and uniqueness.
The Dadswells Bridge farm had been in operation since 1982 and had its own micro abattoir.
"I'm very passionate about micro abattoirs and people being able to process their own stock - pigs, cattle, sheep, poultry," Mr Deutscher said.
He criticised any government regulations which prevented farmers investing in such facilities or the ending of service kills by some companies.
"We are very fortunate when we catch birds out of the paddock here, we take them back to the factory and they're slaughtered within an hour or so," he said.
"They're not caught the night before and don't have to travel hundreds of kilometres.
"We believe our meat is a lot better for the fact that it has so much less stress on it as well."
Mr Deutscher had recently learned how to use an iPad and was now connected with hundreds of turkey lovers around the world.
The 74 year old hoped he could stick with it for another few years and wished all his loyal customers a very Happy Christmas.