The US turkey trot – and other Thanksgiving facts

© Khunaspix Dreamstime.

A little tale of turkeys for Thanksgiving. Logistics Viewpoints has painstakingly worked out where in the US the big birds are produced – and where they are eaten. And there are some good facts. Shockingly, 90% of the US’s 730m pounds of thanksgiving turkeys are frozen. And this year, there are slightly fewer turkeys than last year, after bird flu wiped out 8m of them. This tidbit isn’t in the article, but another seasonal fact is that frozen dinners were invented at this time of year. Why? Because shipper Swanson misjudged turkey demand in 1953, by 260 tons. To get rid of the excess, the company sliced up the meat, packaged it with some trimmings and sold it frozen on aluminum trays. So getting demand wrong isn’t always a bad thing.

We’d like to wish all our US readers a very happy Thanksgiving!