Kellys’ White Breeds Win Shows

By 1979, the white turkey breeds developed by Derek and Mollie Kelly were winning shows around the country for flavour, quality and meat texture. During the 1970s, our breeding programme had focused on producing white turkeys with strong eating qualities, based on Derek’s belief that customers buying a turkey for Christmas would pay more for a bird that offered a better eating experience. The show successes demonstrated the quality the breeding programme had achieved, but they came as the market for traditionally produced Christmas turkeys was becoming more difficult. Supermarkets were expanding their fresh and frozen turkey ranges, while independent butchers-an important route to market for smaller producers-were declining. Paul Kelly later recalled that improvements in processing allowed supermarkets to sell fresh turkeys in greater volumes at lower prices, putting the family’s specialist white breeding and hatchery business under increasing pressure. For us, 1979 therefore combined recognition for the quality of our white birds with an early indication of the commercial challenges that would shape the following decade.