The US turkey industry is facing a fully feathered crisis — and one of its biggest heavyweights is quietly trotting away from the business, The Post has learned.
Minnesota-based food giant Cargill — the third-largest turkey processor in the US — is winding down its Shady Brook Farms line of turkey burgers, sausages, cutlets and whole birds as it eyes a broader exit from a slumping niche that has been slammed by bird flu, sources said.
The 112-year-old supermarket label — whose packaging features a red barn and advertises meat without antibiotics, hormones or steroids — will be off the shelves at many stores by July, multiple retailers and distributors told The Post.
That’s despite the fact that Shady Brook Farms has been the dominant turkey brand in grocery stores along the East Coast — in many cases the only brand retailers have offered for decades.
“Cargill wants to get out of the turkey business,” a distributor told The Post. “Cargill are big numbers people and they are spitting out numbers that don’t make sense.”
The shift is already underway. In March, Morton Williams supermarkets began receiving about half the amount of Shady Brook Farm pre-packaged meat than it had before and turned to two additional vendors to make up for the shortfall, according to Victor Colello, director of meat for the New York City-based grocery chain.
“Ground turkey is a huge item for us,” Colello said.
Stew Leonard’s, a family-owned supermarket chain in the New York area, also saw its Shady Brook Farm orders slashed in recent weeks, chief executive Stew Leonard Jr. told The Post.
“We are scrambling on the buying side to find another producer of ground turkey,” he said. “And we’re expecting turkey prices to go up.”
Earlier this year, Cargill announced that it would be closing one of several turkey processing plants this summer in Springdale, Ark. as consumer demand for turkey levels off, making it a less profitable protein for the massive supplier. More than 1,000 Shady Brook workers will lose their jobs.
Still, Cargill called claims that it’s exiting the turkey industry “rumor and speculation.”
“Turkey remains an essential part of Cargill’s protein portfolio,” the company said in a statement about the plant closing. “We will shift much of Springdale’s production to our turkey processing plants in Missouri and Virginia and work to minimize supply disruptions to customers.”
The turkey industry has been hit mercilessly in recent seasons by viral epidemics. Bird flu has killed 19 million turkeys since 2022. A newer respiratory bug called Metapneumovirus is “decimating” turkey flocks as it has hit between 60% and 80% of flocks nationwide, according to the National Turkey Federation.
Many farms “have quit raising turkeys” altogether because of the viruses and the financial jitters they have sparked, according to congressional testimony in February by the federation’s past chairman, John Zimmerman.
“Most farms operate on a credit line and the banks are saying that if you could lose 30% of your flock each time we lend you money, it doesn’t make sense to lend you money right now,” Zimmerman told The Post.
That’s on top of declining consumer appetites for turkey, which has steadily lost market share to chicken — even during go-to holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Turkey now represents just 11% of poultry consumption versus 87% for chicken.
“Turkey demand went up in the 1980s and has been the same for 40 years,” poultry expert Paul Aho told The Post. “It’s a stagnant industry that hasn’t experienced the explosive growth of the chicken industry.”
Turkey reached its peak in the mid-1990s at 26.8 pounds per capita, fueled by aggressive marketing about lean meats, including turkey bacon. In 2024, the per capita fell to 13.9 pounds or one pound less than 2023, according to USDA data.
Turkey is Cargill’s least profitable protein and has been for years, sources tell The Post. Shady Brook has periodically failed to fulfill commitments to major retailers who were forced to turn to other suppliers — and who billed Cargill for the difference, multiple sources told The Post.
“Shady Brook is an albatross for Cargill,” one industry executive told The Post. “We used to joke with Cargill employees about why Cargill didn’t shut down Shady Brook years ago or sell it.”
Cargill’s Springdale, Ark. plant was built in 1965 and is among its oldest facilities. The plant lost as much as $38 million in a year and a glitch-ridden technology upgrade “really impacted their business,” according to one source with knowledge of the breakdowns.
“That’s an ancient plant and if it hasn’t been upgraded over time,” Aho said. “It makes sense that it might be it’s least profitable facility.”
Shady Brook Farms is not the only struggling turkey processor. California based Foster Farms is closing a turkey plant on May 9, laying off 500 workers.
“Consumption has declined and so closing a plant is a business decision those companies have made,” Zimmerman said. “But it’s not the death knell of the turkey industry [and] hopefully we can find ways to bring back consumption.”
Cargill is the largest privately owned company in the US with $160 billion in revenues. Sales dropped 10% in 2024 as both its meat and crops businesses suffered losses. The company is laying off 5% of its workforce.
At the retail level, Cargill is initially only choking off smaller chains, and will continue to supply larger retailers, including Stop & Shop, Shop Rite and Aldi along with the some big club stores.
“We continue to offer retailers the Shady Brook Farms brand of turkey products as they request and as are available,” the Cargill spokesperson said.
Colello of Morton Williams fears his stores will lose business to the larger chains because customers have been buying Shady Brook Farms for decades. Without the brand, retailers are reaching out to Butterball, Jennie-O and Perdue, which also have been stretched by the bird flu.
“You have to get customers used to a new brand,” Colello said.
