The farm’s retail store, 6490 E. Ross Road, does 25% of its business on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday immediately before the Thursday holiday with customers coming in to pick up their orders and browse for sides.
Bowman said his prices are up slightly this year, about 3%, with his most popular item - the free-range, antibiotic-free turkey - selling for $4.79/pound.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service projects per capita consumption of turkey this year will be about 13.1 pounds, down from 13.8 pounds last year and down more than 2 pounds from the 15.9 pounds per capita consumed in 2019.
A number of factors are contributing to the decline, according to the USDA, including a shift to plant-based diets, a reduction in overall meat consumption, and lingering effects from the coronavirus pandemic which resulted in smaller holiday gatherings.
The opposite is true for Bowman, who said traffic increased after the pandemic as more families tried to return to normalcy at least at the holidays.
“A lot of people found us that way,” he said. New customers joined families who have ordered Thanksgiving birds from the family farm for 50 years.
Through the rest of the year, Bowman and Landes sell to wholesale distributors and restaurants who are in the market for turkey burgers and parts in addition to whole birds.
“But Thanksgiving is our Super Bowl,” said Bowman. The farm hires an additional 100 workers to help the 40 full-time employees for the Thanksgiving season
It seems Ohioans like their turkey.
According to Trace One, a company specializing in regulatory compliance for the food and beverage industry, and data from the USDA, Ohio ranks 8th in the pounds of turkey produced each year and 9th in the number of turkeys raised.
North Carolina leads the nation in total production. Minnesota is tops in total number of turkeys raised.
Ohio produces 3.2% of America’s turkeys. In 2024, Ohio farmers raised 6.4 million turkeys with an average weight of 42.7 pounds per bird.
In total Ohio produced about 275 million pounds of turkey last year.
Koch, co-owner of Valley View Turkey Farm, 4900 Yankee Road in Liberty Twp., said he certainly hasn’t seen any signs of a downturn in the turkey market.
“We start taking orders in early October. We have a waiting list two weeks later,” Koch said.
He said one thing that drives customers his way is pricing. They set prices early, usually in mid to late September. All Valley View turkeys are $4.65/pound.
He and his brother, Kelvin, run the family’s 100-acre farm in their off-hours from full-time jobs.
All 1,500 turkeys they’ve raised will be gone by Thursday.
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