Turkey may move out from being just a Christmas or Thanksgiving fare to a meat catering to the changing aspiration and tastes of people.

Despite being priced steeply compared with other poultry products, the demand for turkey meat is prompting players to set up online sales channels, set-up contract farming and even specialty restaurants.

Sameer Mathur, Managing Director and CEO, Dancing Turkeys, an online B2B Web site selling turkey meat to hospitality, educational institutions and bulk buyers, says: “Turkey consumption today makes it a festive food, but we would like to change that perception, and make it as much a staple diet as possible. With a distinct change in the lifestyle, consumers are seeking variety. Turkey meat is a highly nutritional product”.

The company sells turkey in various forms including cold cut.

“We have contractual agreement with farms in Tamil Nadu and Mysore to get the bird. We have also set up meat processing facility at Mohali near Chandigarh to launch our line ready-to-cook products to meet the demand.”

Mathur says that a semi-premium range of his company’s turkey sells anywhere between Rs 880-Rs 980/ kg.

“Our prices are lower considering hotels and hospitality segment used to buy it for over Rs 1,600 a kg,” he says, adding the company will be selling initially only to the B2B segment as logistics parameters such as cold chains and refrigerated vans are still in their infancy. Dancing Turkeys has tied-up with leading chefs to create turkey recipes for theIndian market.

Mandya-based Kiran of SKP Farms, which has been rearing the birds for the past three years, said that the awareness is yet to catch up in India on the nutritional aspects of turkey. SKP Farms expects to sell about 10 tonnes of turkey this year against 6-7 tonnes last year.

SKP, which has set up a processing unit and cold storage at Mysore, is the largest supplier to Dancing Turkeys, said Kiran.

Rajasthan-based Ashok Gujjar, who owns a turkey farm, says that the company has already exhausted its stock in early November.

“There is not a single bird. We could not meet the meet and have sold our entire stock of over 2,000 birds. In case you want to buy, we can provide a farm’s number in Tamil Nadu,” Gujjar told Business Line .

He said that turkey broilers are slaughtered between 12 and 27 weeks as soon as they can provide 5.5 to 7.5 kg of meat.

His farm has sold turkey for Rs 350/ kg. Several Government agencies are also taking initiatives to scale up the turkey farming.

The Central Poultry Development Organisation at Hessarghatta, Bangalore, has been promoting turkey rearing since 1997 and has been a supplier of eggs and poults (turkey chicks).

Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Manipur have introduced turkey farming.

“Turkey farming has a good potential but lack of marketing support is inhibiting its spread and growth,” said A.V. Omprakash, Professor and Head of Poultry Research Station of Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University at Madhavaram near Chennai.

In Tamil Nadu, turkey is reared in about 500 to 600 farms around Theni and Madurai. Turkey rearing is largely done by small farmers and large corporates are yet to make investments. The poultry research station is making efforts to promote the rearing of white turkey birds, Omprakash said.

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