Organic Turkey Farming Begins in Germany

In 1997, we took our specialist KellyBronze breed into organic production in Germany, working with Dr Martin Bohn and Henk Coolen. Together, Paul Kelly, Bohn and Coolen developed an approach for the German market based on slow-growing bronze turkeys raised outdoors under organic farming requirements. KellyBronze records this as the beginning of organic farming of its specialist breed in Germany. The partnership led to the establishment of Freiland Puten Fahrenzhausen in Bavaria that summer. Bohn brought experience of the German poultry sector, Coolen operated a hatchery in the Netherlands, and Paul contributed the robust bronze turkey breeding stock developed by the Kelly family. A later account from the German business records that its first flock comprised 200 KellyBronze poults from Paul's breeding programme. For us, the project represented an early move beyond the UK and demonstrated that the KellyBronze breed could form part of an organic, free-range production system in another European market. Freiländer Bio Geflügel, the business that developed from the original venture, continues to associate its origins with the three partners and 1997.