Turkey processor uses cutting-edge sealing technology for longer product shelf-life and irresistible shelf appeal
Hayter’s Turkey Products uses its newly-installed T 700 tray-sealer from Multivac to perform vacuum skin packaging and modified atmosphere packaging at the company’s Dashwood processing facility.
White meat or dark? That’s the eternal conundrum for many a diner sitting down to an elegant repast of a turkey dinner.
Though long associated with traditional North American holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, this versatile bird is no longer a once-in-a-blue-moon dish, as modern meat processing technologies have made it possible to turn turkey meat into a broad range of delicatessen-style meats and sausages, along with other lean, high-protein meal options produced by companies such as Hayter’s Turkey Products Inc. of Dashwood, Ont.
Located on a 3,000-plus-acre site just off the shores of Lake Huron, the third-generation, family-owned business employs about 60 people to raise over 120,000 turkey on its farmlands per year to process over 1.6 million kilograms of turkey meat, according to the company’s information technology and sales manager Sean Maguire, a grand-son of the company’s founder Harry Hayter, who began raising turkeys back in 1948.
Generating revenues of about $10 million last year, the company enjoys about a four-percent share of the Ontario market, Maguire estimates.
“Turkey is all we do,” Maguire told Canadian Packaging during a recent interview, describing the company as a “relatively small hands-on operation now owned and operated by Harry’s son and daughter, Tom Hayter and Joanne Maguire, my mother.”
Maguire attributes the company’s enviable longevity and steady growth to its relentless focus on high product quality and safety.
“In order for the company to have survived all of these years it was, and continues to be, imperative for us to produce turkey products with the highest levels of quality, taste, nutrition and freshness,” Maguire asserts. “By raising and processing all birds on this one site, we can ensure that the utmost care is given throughout the entire process.
“Housing up to 65,000 turkeys at any one time, we allow the birds to roam free within our 13 spacious, open-sided, well-ventilated buildings,” Maguire expands. “Not only do we do this because it’s a humane way to raise the birds, but also because it matters to our customers.”
Maguire explains that raising turkey in humane and comfortable natural surroundings—providing proper ventilation and temperature control, ample ranging space, quality bedding and feed, etc.—is key to maintaining sound bird health and raising a premium, high-grade bird.
“We are not a turkey factory,” Maguire points out. “We are proud to continue on with Harry’s devotion to his birds.”
Fresh turkey breasts in Cryovac polypropylene trays are sealed in vacuum skin packaging by the Multivac T 700 tray sealer to ensure longer product shelf-life.
Core Rules
When Hayter first began developing its early line of processed turkey product right in the Hayter family kitchen back in the 1970s, Maguire recalls, the company quickly established three core ground rules that it strictly observes to this day: the products must have great flavor; turkey farming must be a true labor of love; and the family should always be working together as one.
These days, Hayter’s business competes in three distinct product categories:
• Bagged whole birds, accounting for 29 per cent of its business:
• The so-called “canners,” i.e. whole birds shipped out in bulk to be further-processed by other food companies, accounting for 35 per cent of production;
• Pre-cut, further-processed turkey parts—breasts, drumsticks, wings, etc.—sold to foodservice operators and retail chains, making up the remaining 26 per cent.
According to Maguire, the company’s flagship Hayter’s Farm retail brand today comprises 20 different fresh turkey products and three prepared frozen-turkey entrées.
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Talking turkey
