Talkin’ Turkeys

 by Indie Stone

Despite Turkey being Britain’s traditional Christmas Dinner since the Victorian Period, this year it might be off the menu. For many of us, this will be a time of celebration as the repetition of having turkey every year is extremely dull. But for all the hardcore fowl fans out there, my news could be absoulutely outrageous and may even ruin the whole of your Christmas.

What on earth could be terminating the wonderful thanksgiving, be-snooded bird from being presented on our superb Christmas dinner tables? Have they decided to take a holiday for the year and make another type of poultry the star of the show? Well, sort of, in whatever sort of way you see it as. Visa changes have come too late in order to allow labour recruitment from abroad, which means that the big companies in turkey farming have already scaled back because they assumed that they wouldn’t have enough staff to process their birds. This means that our faithful farmers just haven’t assembled a big enough army of  turkeys, which simply expresses that there just won’t be enough of them in the supermarket.

Kate Martin, chairwoman of the Traditional Farm Fresh Turkey Association stated that, 'It is the supermarket shelves that will be emptier of turkeys this year than they have been before, only because there have been less turkeys placed on the ground; only because the big processors know that they will not get them processed.' 

Luckily for local farm shops and small businesses, they might be better prepared for this situation as they tend to recruit local labour instead of large numbers of migrant workers.

So for all of you out there who want a different taste at Christmas dinner this year, instead of the regular dryness of roast turkey, you may be in for a lucky excuse to have a dreamy roast lamb or a succulent fillet of beef. But for the turkey fan club, in order to get your Christmas delicacy, maybe buy locally this year to ensure a turkey-tastic meal is on the table for the 25th.