The increased promotion of turkey in Canadian fast food menus is driving record production levels.
John Sheldon, manager of markets information with the Canadian Turkey Marketing Agency, cited increased promotion and rising demand by fast food restaurants as driving the current
increases.
“There’s a big push towards turkey in food service,” he said, noting it offers the lowest fat content of the major competing meat products.
The Canadian turkey industry set a production record of 154.8 million kilograms in 2005, increasing 10.5 million kg from 2004.
“We consumed every turkey we produced and some of the ones in storage at the beginning of the year,” he said.
Records were broken again in 2006, with 159.6 million kg consumed.
The national agency responded by increasing quota to 149.2 million kg in 2007-08 from 141.7 million kg in 2006-07.
Quota increases are allotted in accordance with agreements with provincial turkey associations.
In 2006, 51 Alberta turkey producers supplied 13,054,194 kg of eviscerated meat, 64 Manitoba operators supplied 10,621,373 kg and 15 Saskatchewan suppliers produced 5,254,973 kg.
