Holiday Turkey Sales

I am going to do them and hams also I think fresh is the only way to go. I haven't figured out pricing yet. I will post when i get it going.

If you aim at 3 - 4 times cost you'll be in the right sort of price area.

YMMV!

You can go lower or higher than that, but for finished product that works most places.

Bubba and I were talking about doing that this year, any insights are appreciated!!

http://www.ranchorocke.com/Menus.html

Our Tgiving menu is here - Feel free to copy, change, etc. Here in So Cal, you have to compete with the grocery stores, Marie Callender's, etc, etc. Hope this helps.

Last year I had people bring me the turkeys and I did them. Was really hard to keep track of them all.

This year I am going to buy all the turkeys and sell the meat in 10lb increments. Right now I'm thinking $25 per 10lbs. And thats probably way under priced but this is a small town community I do it for and I'm not out to make a lot off them.

I did 18 turkeys last year for thanksgiving. I had people sign up for a bird and pre pay for it. I also asked them when they wanted it by ( some familys celebrate on Fri or Sat instead of Thu.). I charged $35 for a 10lb to 12lb avg. bird. I bought all my birds at my local grocery store when they went on sale, avg cost was $10.50.
I smoked my turkeys one to three days ahead of when they were going to be picked up. I put the finished bird in a disposable aluminum pan and covered it with foil. I included an instruction sheet on how to warm up the turkey before serving : 350 deg oven for 45 min. before serving. Or can be eaten cold as bird is fully cooked and ready to eat.
I never had more than 3 finished birds in my fridge at one time due to the schedule that people picked them up.

I also threw in a recipe for an orange, cranberry, jelapeno sauce to use on leftover turkey sandwiches.

They went over realy well.

I put my finished turkey into oven bags for my customer. That is part of the service I provide. This helps make it easy for the customer. Cost is nominal compared to a customer talking bad about the turkey they got from you. I do not smoke a turkey over 16 lbs. I will not compromise the quality of the meal for a couple extra pounds of leftovers for aunt martha to take home.

• Set the oven temperature no lower than 325 °F.
• Reheat turkey to an internal temperature of 165 °F. Use a food thermometer to check the internal temperature.
• To keep the turkey moist, add a little broth or water and cover. Usually there is plenty of broth in the bag but just in case.

This is the guidline i give. Hope this helps.

I never cook meat of any kind that a person brings me. Period. I want complete control over quality and food safety. You are the one that gets blamed if that turkey sat in the back of there car for 4 days thawing out and makes everyone sick. Especially with poultry. I have made a couple people mad but I don't care. If they get mad then its not the person you want to cook for. end of story.

Bossmanbbq said:

If I smoke the turkeys one or two days ahead of Thanksgiving, how do you package them and what re-heat instructions to you give?

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If you got a big enough vacuum sealer, great, otherwise plenty of heavy duty foil. Serve the bird at room temp, let the hot gravy give it some heat. A reheated bird will be too dry.You got to get a 3-4 time markup to make it worth your while. Check out the prices in all the food catalogues, incredible!

Rickwieser said:

I never cook meat of any kind that a person brings me. Period. I want complete control over quality and food safety. You are the one that gets blamed if that turkey sat in the back of there car for 4 days thawing out and makes everyone sick. Especially with poultry. I have made a couple people mad but I don't care. If they get mad then its not the person you want to cook for. end of story.

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Listen to this guy. He is right on the money!

Hey, why you selling your Fred? I used to service the Breakpoint smokehouses for that company. You know, the IMF 3000 control panels for the FMP500 and FMP1000 big bad boys. The fred 400 is the shizzle!

Rickwieser said:

I never cook meat of any kind that a person brings me. Period. I want complete control over quality and food safety. You are the one that gets blamed if that turkey sat in the back of there car for 4 days thawing out and makes everyone sick. Especially with poultry. I have made a couple people mad but I don't care. If they get mad then its not the person you want to cook for. end of story.

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I apply this any and all meats I cook for anybody!

Great advice.