Ohio is No. 8 in the nation for turkey production, bringing in over $153 million in production value to the state according to a study from Trace One.
It also found that those turkeys have increased in size as demand for the product has steadily risen since the 1960s.
And those numbers heavily focus around the nation's popular holiday, Thanksgiving. A report by Pew Research Center shows that the November holiday is celebrated by over 90% of the population in the US.
So how has that demand impacted smaller producers in the state?
A local farm's humble beginnings
Southwest Ohio's Bowman and Landes Turkeys has been operating as a family-run farm out of New Carlisle since 1948.
But the full story of the farm goes back to 1915 when now co-owner, Drew Bowman's great-grandfather David Bowman bought the parcel of land at 6490 Ross Rd.
"It was just a family farm — and they did not have turkeys at that point in time. They did have a little bit of livestock and an orchard," Bowman said.
It was not until the late 1930s that his grandfather's brother started raising turkeys. But he soon decided to move to California and so Kenneth Bowman and Dennis Landes stepped in and formed a partnership, creating what is now known as Bowman and Landes Turkeys.
"And they've been raising free-range turkeys basically since the 1940s," Bowman said.
The business started off humbly, raising just a few thousand turkeys a year.
But now it produces over 75,000 turkeys annually.
"At that point in time it was strictly for turkey for the holidays and today we offer turkeys for the holiday and also turkey products year round for our consumers," he said.
According to Bowman, demand for their free-range turkeys has increased, peaking over the past 20 to 30 years.
“A lot of that is people going back to their roots and wanting to know where their food comes from and connecting more with their local farmers and producers," he said. "I think that means more to a lot of people today and in the last twenty years maybe than it did prior to that.”
Bowman said those turkeys have not only grown in popularity, but also size which could be attributed to both genetic efficiency and better understanding of care practices for the birds.
“My grandfather, who's now deceased, 50 or 60 years ago, he would have been placing his turkeys for Thanksgiving earlier than what we do today," he said. "Maybe by a month or more even to get the same size turkey.”
While Bowman and Landes is not the largest turkey producer in the state, Bowman said their smaller, free-range focus allows them to provide high-quality, whole turkeys to a local market.
"Cooper Farms is a large turkey producer in the state of Ohio," he said. "Now, their business model is a little bit different than ours, so most of our turkeys we're producing here are for fresh whole turkeys for Thanksgiving, whereas Cooper Farms raises turkeys for further processing, for making turkey deli meats and turkey burgers and things of that nature. They don't specialize in the whole turkey market like we do."
More than a Thanksgiving food
The U. S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 46 million turkeys are consumed each year on Thanksgiving, and Bowman and Landes works hard to supply those full-sized turkeys for families gathering on the holiday.
Most of the whole turkeys produced at the family farm fly out the doors by Thanksgiving, but Bowman said turkeys are still available for Christmas in a variety of sizes.
"We do place turkey poults throughout the summer months. So our first flock of turkeys comes in around the end of June and then our last flock of turkeys comes about the middle of August," Bowman said. "So, we have about eight different flocks of turkeys and what that does is it allows us to offer turkeys anywhere from a small 10 pound hen all the way to a large 30 pound tom and everything in between."
While the Trace One study found that turkey production has seen a recent decline, dropping from 26.8 pounds per person in 1996 to just 19.3 pounds per person in 2024, Bowman said he's working on growing interest in turkey as a high-protein, healthy alternative for consumers to enjoy all year.
"I am aware of kind of some of the numbers that you point to that turkey gross nationally has been relatively flat to maybe slightly decreasing here the last 10 to 20 years," he said. "So people like me are trying to change that and trying to educate our consumers out there about turkey and turkey products. Because oftentimes a lot of people think about turkey one day a year."
