Who’s Coming to Thanksgiving? Local Farms Are Already Selling Out of Turkeys

Nov 12

Originally published in The Berkshire Eagle, November 12, 2020. By Francesca Olsen, Eagle correspondent.

Looking for a local Thanksgiving turkey this year? You may end up grasping at feathers.

While some local farmers have a few turkeys left at this point in the season, the demand for local food has been so high this year that farms are selling out of everything — animal, vegetable and mineral.

Jim Schultz at Red Shirt Farm in Lanesborough has raised about 75 heritage turkeys; by the end of September, all were spoken for.

Heritage turkeys on pasture at Red Shirt Farm.

“I think the response to [COVID-19], how people are hunkering down for Thanksgiving, means more people are asking for a smaller bird,” Schultz said.

Smaller turkeys aren’t the only local product in demand thanks to the pandemic. Local farmers have seen an upward trend in sales this year as more people look for local, safe options to feed their families. Red Shirt offers vegetables, fruit, heritage pigs and turkeys, chickens, and eggs, and Schultz’ sales at farmers markets doubled this year, he said.

“Everything we’ve grown has sold out,” he said. “If we could have produced twice as much, I think we could have sold twice as much.”

This year, Ashley Amsden and Michael Gallagher of Square Roots Farm in Lanesborough have raised around 140 turkeys. Most have already been preordered. “Part of it was everyone was home because they’re cooking more — but the pandemic kind of exposed the fragility of the food system,” Amsden said. “People wanted to find local producers who were maybe more reliable than the food systems that feed the grocery store.”

Dom Palumbo at Moon in the Pond Farm in Sheffield has felt the same demand, while also committing as usual to feeding the farm’s workers, apprentices and interns three meals a day. He sourced his turkey poults (baby turkeys) from Schultz, and has around 40 birds at the moment. He hadn’t started taking orders yet, but expected to sell out.

Though the increased demand presented challenges of its own, “It’s wonderful to see the movement and the support for farmers and farmers markets in the area,” Schultz said.

“It’s a bit of a mixed blessing,” said Palumbo. “It came so fast and under duress, but it is in fact what all we local farmers have been working around and for. It’s our calling and our mission.”