He said the demand for further-processed turkey continues to
grow in Ontario and the Turkey Farmers of Ontario marketing board recently
licenced two new processors.
Abington at Caisterville will be processing for the kosher
market where demand, currently met by imports, is about 100,000 birds per year.
Conscious Cuisine of Dundalk is the other newcomer.
“That gives us another couple of outlets for our birds,”
Ricker said.
Another particularly bright spot is keen demand for
Butterball cut-up turkey sold fresh. That falls into the further-processed
category which in Ontario has increased by about 12 million kilograms over the
last decade.
The national agency has cut allocations for whole-bird
production by three million kilograms to 60 million for the upcoming fiscal
year.
Ontario’s share of that is 29 per cent, or about 870,000
kilograms. That will be partially, and perhaps almost totally, offset by
increases for the further-processed category.
Allocations in that category reflect requests filed by each
further-processing company; their requests are audited by the national agency
to avert over-production.
Ricker said Quebec has also seen an increase in demand for
further-processed turkey because a retailer there has introduced a new product.
Ontario also has two organic turkey producers now, both
marketing into the further-processed category, Ricker said.
Ricker said the national agency decided to make a cut now,
rather than waiting for December stocks statistics as a couple of provinces
advocated, because those statistics won’t be available until mid-January, the
board won’t meet to discuss those figures until February and and implementation
wouldn’t come until March.
That is too late for processors to make effective plans, he
said.
