Marketing Margins and Practices for Turkeys Sold in Three Eastern Markets

Excerpts from the report: The task of supplying turkey meat to the millions of consumers in the United States is the business of about 170 thousand farmers and many thousands of marketing firms. Farmers produced an estimated 1,090 million pounds live weight of turkeys in 1955, or about 5 pounds of ready-to-cook turkey meat per person. Increasing demand in recent years has made turkey meat a major food item as well as the principal item on holiday menus. The services of many marketing agencies — dealers, processors, transportation companies, warehouses, wholesalers, and retailers — are required to move turkeys from farms to consumers at the times and in the forms they desire. This study was undertaken to measure marketing margins for turkeys in three large cities in which large quantities of turkeys are sold and consumed annually. These cities are Washington, D. C.; Boston, Mass., and Cincinnati, Ohio. Approximately 700 retail independent stores and chainstores were surveyed in the 3 metropolitan areas. Some of the chains were national, some regional, and, in one instance, a voluntary chain was included. No distinction among types of chains was made in the study. Information directly associated with margins, trade channels, pricing methods, merchandising practices, costs of processing and transporting, sizes and types of birds handled, and seasonality of turkey sales was obtained and studied.