Christmas is always a busy time with family and friends.

For many families it may include sitting down to a nice roast turkey supper with all the trimmings.

Mark Davies is Chair of the Canadian Turkey Farmers of Canada and says the industry is quite strong noting this is an important time of year for the industry.

"Looking this time of year at Christmas were especially the whole birds are consumed. 24 million kilograms (of turkey consumed) at Christmas and of those numbers 75 percent are whole birds or a table bird. If we dig down and take a look as Saskatchewan it's 848,000 kilograms which is just saw of 2 million pounds," Davies said.    

The bulk of Saskatchewan’s Turkey production is shipped out to the Granny’s plant in Manitoba and the Lilydale plant in Alberta for processing.

Christmas and Thanksgiving are key times when people look to put turkey on their plate but Davies says the lean meat is a great fit year round.

"The theme of the conversation today is really that turkey is not just a festive bird. This goes to addressing the market and trying to get people to think that it's an everyday protein. It's the leanest protein out there, when you look at the price per unit or kilogram it's the cheapest. It's really a value for the money, ther is so much you can do with a turkey beyond a festive meal," he said. 

Davies notes Saskatchewan has 11 Turkey producers with an average farm size of about 500,000.

Which results in total production numbers for Saskatchewan that are just shy of 6 million k-g’s.