In an age of TV dinners and pre-packaged microwave mush, Christmas is one of those rare times when families sit down to enjoy a proper meal together – be it at home or, as is becoming more popular, dining out.
There’s a lot to be said for letting someone else slave over turkey and all the trimmings. Entire families prefer to decamp to their favourite restaurant, where they can relax without wondering who’ll be left with the washing-up. But this year customers could be eating something different. With reports suggesting it’s only a matter of time before avian influenza strikes European poultry stocks, there’s a danger that chefs will face a shortage of high-quality domestic turkeys. The threat is slight, but if it happens, the virus is most likely to hit outdoor flocks – in other words, the valuable free-range and organic turkeys favoured by top-end catering establishments. And farmers fear there’s little they can do to stop it.
Robert Garner of Norfolk-based Godwick Turkeys says: “The first thing we’ll do is bring all our birds indoors. It’s about all we can do. But it’s a real worry because we’re very heavily into the Christmas market and it’s a major part of our income.”
A member of the Traditional Farmfresh Turkey Association, Garner selects the best type of bird and rears 1,800 of them on a natural free-range system. They are then humanely processed to improve their natural flavour. The association’s 50 or so members produce about 130,000 birds every year. It might sound a lot, but it’s a drop in the ocean compared with the 7.5 million turkeys produced by Britain every year.
The Food Standards Agency considers that avian flu doesn’t pose a food safety risk for consumers. This is because the risk of humans catching the disease comes from being in close contact with live birds that have the disease and not through eating them. Nevertheless, a disease outbreak would be unthinkable. The virus is certainly heading this way. It has already swept through poultry flocks in South-east Asia. A highly contagious strain of the virus has been found in Kazakhstan and Mongolia.
Last month Dr Bob McCracken, president of the British Veterinary Association, said he believed the virus would spread through the world’s wild bird population. Although it’s not inevitable that bird flu will appear in domesticated birds, Dr McCracken said it was possible that the virus would get to extensively reared domesticated birds – and that includes British free-range turkeys. “While the risk of the introduction of the virus in the UK is currently considered to be low, we must recognise that this risk is more likely to increase with time than decrease,” says McCracken.
Outbreaks in Europe are not unknown. Britain’s last outbreak was in 1991, when sudden mortality occurred in a single Norfolk poultry house containing about 8,000 18-week-old turkeys. Restrictions similar to those seen during the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak were imposed. Poultry movements were prohibited from within the infected area except for slaughter until the all-clear was given.
More recently, however, Holland was forced to cull about a quarter of its poultry after an outbreak of bird flu. The virus saw Dutch farmers destroy some 30 million birds at a cost of about €150m (£102m) just two years ago. Now Dutch farmers have been ordered to keep five million free-range chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and other birds indoors.
Back in Britain, the Government has set up a working group to advise on surveillance and monitor developments. Chief veterinary officer Debby Reynolds says ministers recognised the need for proportionate action and would keep the matter under review. “There’s no room for complacency,” she says.
The disease might not reach Britain next week, next month or even necessarily next year, but British poultry farmers are bracing themselves. Its effects on smaller caterers could be devastating. Peter Allen of catering butcher Aubrey Allen says: “If bird flu does hit Europe, the effect will be severe. It will radically increase the price of other meats. Nobody is going to go short, but it will definitely affect the price.”
The disease is moving more slowly than forecast, says Allen. Any outbreak here would mean the virus would have travelled halfway around the world. Depending on its extent, smaller caterers would find it hard to source alternative quality supplies. And with Christmas just weeks away, Allen believes many chefs would find it difficult or even impossible to source alternative turkey supplies. They would have to use pork, beef, lamb or more intensively reared poultry instead.
“Businesses like us have already made their Christmas turkey arrangements, so it’s not going to be possible to turn to somebody and say: ‘Can you supply me because I can’t get any turkey?’ They’re just not going to be able to do it,” he says.
Aubrey Allen’s free-range bronze turkeys are raised in Worcestershire. But it’s not only suppliers at the high-quality artisan end of the market who are worried. Big multinationals are also monitoring the situation closely. Despite expert insistence that the threat of an avian flu outbreak is slight, major catering companies like Sodexho are concerned enough to have introduced their own contingency plans should domestic supplies be threatened.
In a statement, the company said: “In the event of an outbreak of avian flu in the UK, Sodexho’s key poultry supplier has in place alternative sources of poultry in Europe and around the world or if necessary the company would look to use frozen products.”
Britain imports about 50,000 tonnes of turkey meat every year in various forms – whether fresh or frozen whole birds, or as portions. But it’s uncertain how much makes its way into the catering industry because many chefs buy independently.
Yet a major problem remains. Bird flu knows no boundaries. It spreads through the inhalation of virus-contaminated airborne droplets, or contact with contaminated bird droppings. And because birds fly, it’s difficult to contain. In Britain, attention has focused on the possibility that the disease could be carried to these shores by migrating wild birds. The danger of disease increases when large numbers of birds are attracted into an area to feed.
Over the next few weeks, thousands of geese are due to arrive in East Anglia, one of Britain’s prime poultry-producing areas. They will have travelled from Russia, where at least 11,000 infected birds have been found.
From his poultry farm near Fakenham, Garner says: “Once the migratory bird season really starts, the threat could be very significant. We don’t get many migrating geese in this area, but we do get them on the north Norfolk coast.” Rearing replacement turkeys would be out of the question. Garner takes his first delivery of day-old chicks from the hatchery in June and birds for the Christmas market are bred to mature slowly over nearly six months.
Continued vigilance is needed to make sure any outbreak is contained at an early stage, says Charles Bourns, chairman of the National Farmers’ Union’s poultry board. He has already held talks with Government officials to discuss the threat to UK poultry flocks. “Farmers are on a heightened state of alert with regard to biosecurity and keeping wild birds away from their flocks, especially in light of the recent case of Newcastle Disease [the deadly disease affected pheasants],” says Bourns.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has set up a special website, and farmers are being urged to feed turkeys only when the birds are inside. They’re also being encouraged to consider modifying buildings just in case compulsory housing is introduced.
Like Defra’s experts, Peter Bradnock, chief executive of the British Poultry Council, insists that any threat of the disease is remote. But producers have already stepped up surveillance of their flocks, he says. “If there’s any avian influenza out there we’re likely to find out about it sooner than we would have done previously. Therefore we’re in a better position to take action before any infection spreads widely throughout the national flock.”
There’s little cause for concern provided any outbreak is contained quickly, says Bradnock. But clarification is needed on whether producers would lose their free-range status if ordered to move their birds indoors.
Meanwhile, chefs can only watch and wait. Matt Tebbutt, chef at the Foxhunter, in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, says: “There are always huge scare stories, and it all looks very dramatic when you read about it in the newspapers. But as far as Christmas is concerned I have no contingency plans.”