Money squawks.
This Thanksgiving, parade balloons aren’t the only thing undergoing inflation. According to the USDA’s Turkey Market News Report, the price of a small frozen turkey is up significantly this year, averaging nearly $1.36 per pound, compared to $1.13 last year. But some are paying much, much more for their Thanksgiving centerpiece.
A special variety known as KellyBronze has been called the “Rolls-Royce of turkeys” by the Times of London — and it has the price tag to match the moniker. The birds go for upwards of $13 per pound, meaning that a large turkey can cost well over $300. But some say they’re worth it, and there’s a growing hunger for them.
“They’re probably the best turkeys in the country, [they] have a deeper flavor. They’re pretty special,” said Jake Dickson, the owner of Dickson’s Farmstand in Chelsea Market, where the $13.35-per-pound cost hasn’t stopped growing demand for the birds this year. Eataly, one of the few other places in the city selling KellyBronze, has also seen an uptick in interest, and the KellyBronze company says US sales have surged by more than 50% compared to last year.
In an ironic twist, the turkeys actually come from a British family who has been producing them for decades. The Kelly clan first started raising and selling traditional white turkeys in the 1970s. In the 1980s, they looked to distinguish themselves from the mass-produced birds stuffing the market, which are often sold at a loss to get customers in the doors of grocery stores. So they began buying up the last stock of a rare, slow-growing Bronze breed with roots in Mexico, where eating big birds actually originated. (Wild turkeys were first domesticated in central Mexico roughly 2,000 years ago and enjoyed by the Mayans and Aztecs. When the Spanish conquered Mexico in the 1500s, they brought some of the turkeys back to Europe, where farmers in Spain and England began raising them.)
“It has a more distinctive turkey flavor, as it used to taste,” said farmer Paul Kelly, 58, who is in the business with his 92-year-old father and 27-year-old son. In the United Kingdom, the KellyBronze name has a loyal following and has garnered praise from celebrity chefs such as Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, who hailed its turkeys as “the best of the best.” The Kelly family sells more than 50,000 birds, raised on dozens of farms around the country, at Christmas, when turkey is traditionally eaten in the UK.
In 2014, the Kellys purchased a 138-acre farm in Virginia, after seeing an opportunity to expand to the American market, where no one was offering similar turkeys. They started selling the birds stateside in earnest in 2018, and this year, they’re really starting to take off. They expect to sell 3,400 Thanksgiving turkeys — online at KellyBronze.com or through a handful of specialty stockists — up from 2,200 last year. KellyBronze birds range in size from 8 to 27 pounds, but at press time, only smaller ones were still available.
The special flock lives a drastically different life than your average supermarket gobbler. They hatch with the natural season in the spring and then roam freely outdoors with plenty of room — roughly 200 birds an acre, according to Kelly — eating corn and soy milled fresh on the farm, along with whatever they nibble in the fields.
“Whatever you’ve thought about turkey before, we just throw away the rulebook,” said Kelly.
But the key difference, according to Kelly, is their age. His birds are about 6 months old when they’re slaughtered, about twice as old as more conventionally raised offerings.
“They have all that maturity,” he said. “They’ve laid all their muscle down, and they’ve laid all the fat down, so you haven’t got to baste them or brine them,” said Kelly, who noted that the flesh is somewhat marbled with fat, in the same way that ultra premium beef is, meaning they’re naturally juicy and cook in half the time of typical turkey. “It’s kind of like Wagyu,” Kelly said.
Once slaughtered, commercial turkeys are dunked in hot water to loosen the feathers for plucking. KellyBronze birds, which have unique black feathers and quills, are plucked dry, allowing them to be hung and aged in a refrigerator for two weeks, during which time the connective tissue breaks down and flavor intensifies.
“It just makes it very, very tender,” said Kelly, adding that they’re the only company in the US processing birds in this way, after seeking special USDA approval.
Still, not everyone is certain KellyBronze are worth all that gold and silver.
Dickson said he’s a fan and enjoys them but notes that other less pricey high-end birds are also quite delicious. Some of his customers have noted that they didn’t taste that much different despite the high price. And some find the black quills visible under the skin before cooking unsightly.
In the end, Dickson said, “It’s still turkey. It doesn’t magically turn into prime rib.”