The economics of the turkey market are changing. HPAI and other diseases have tightened supplies but prices are down. And decades-long annual sales cycles seem to have been permanently altered by the pandemic’s effects on social gatherings — but ground product isn’t picking up the slack.

As the holiday season, and holiday meals, draw closer on the calendar, Mark Jordan of LEAP Analytics joins MeatingPod to help make sense of this fast-changing market, with an eye on what to expect in 2026.

It seems a time comes when a meatcutter or rancher wants to take their passion for feeding their communities to a new level, and start up a processing plant. Most of them will need the advice and guidance of someone like David Zarling. The food manufacturing and operations consultant, and program manager for the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network of Oregon State University Extension, has for years led enthusiastic but financially naive meat pros to adopt what he calls a “manufacturing mindset.” Profits are likely to follow.

Zarling spent some time with MeatingPod to discuss that transition, along with the biggest threat to a small processor, how to survive in a time of constant change, and where and when to invest scarce dollars in technology.

In the conversation, Zarling mentions research published by U of Illinois’ Drs. Catherine Isley and Sarah A. Low. That paper can be found here.

Every pound a broiler chick puts on up to market distribution uses a gallon of water. Multiply that by the nearly 10 billion birds produced in the U.S. each year — predominantly in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states — and that’s a small lake’s worth of H2O.

Much of that is the byproduct of processing, and managing that nutrient- and solids-dense water sustainably and economically is a priority for the entire poultry supply chain.

Auburn University’s Brendan Higgins has been studying the options for nearly a decade, and has found that poultry processing water byproducts can be used boost crops — even lettuce, which is especially vulnerable to contamination. Mindful of the fact that every site is unique, he and his team have vetted several options for processors to consider, primarily using technology that’s familiar to the industry and may already be at-hand.

Higgins explains his research and its applications to the industry in this episode of MeatingPod.

Listeners who are interesting in learning more should check out these papers written by Dr. Higgins and his team on the topic they have dubbed "PoultryPonics":

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960852425001932

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479725005353

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsestwater.4c00262