ARE CUSTOMERS LOOKING FOR an all-natural turkey for their Thanksgiving table?
Of the 22,000 turkeys, Norwalk, Conn.-based Stew Leonard's will sell during Thanksgiving week, 25% to 30% of those birds will be the company's Naked brand, meaning the turkeys were never treated with antibiotics, artificial hormones or additives, a company spokeswoman said.
Some retailers, however, said that quality and consistency tops everything else when customers buy their Thanksgiving turkey. Shoppers don't want to be disappointed. If their bird is sourced locally, all the better.
“We've been buying our turkeys direct from a local grower for years, and that's the turkey - under our label - that our customers want because they know they can count on it,” John Gerlach, meat buyer/supervisor at three-unit Stauffers of Kissel Hill, Lititz, Pa., told SN.
Gerlach explained that the grower has strict production procedures, but does not go through all that's necessary to say his birds have “had no antibiotics ever.”
“What counts is it's a top quality, well-raised bird. One year, he changed the packaging, and we took a big hit.
Customers took one look and thought it wasn't the same quality turkey they'd been getting from us every year. Naturally, we went back to the former packaging, and sales came right back up the next year.
