Minnesota began as a timber state, grew to prominence as a milling and mining state, and later became a powerhouse med-tech state. (The ever-booming ag industry continues to brainwash our most-precious commodity, the children.) As much as anything, though, we’re a turkey state—just take a look around the Capitol! But seriously, folks, Minnesota ranks No. 1 in the country for turkey production, raising around 40 million birds each or about 18% of all U.S. output, according to the state Department of Agriculture.
Two pioneering University of Minnesota experts, William "Doc" Billings and Cora Cooke, helped revive Minnesota’s turkey industry, which, in the 1920s, “was in shambles,” reports Christopher Vondracek of the Star Tribune. By the middle of the 20th century, Willmar, Minnesota, had become a poultry boomtown with the Jennie-O juggernaut as well as the nation’s biggest hatchery, Select Genetics. Minnesota eventually pulled away from North Carolina, once its fiercest turkey-production rival, and hasn’t ceded the turkey crown in decades. Setting aside the bloody industry’s innumerable animal-rights abuses, it has become a place for women veterinarians to take flight (unlike their patients). "All the prominent [turkey vets] are women,” boasts Ashley Kohls of the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association.
That’s why two Minnesota turkeys are annually lavished with hotel stays and popular music before receiving pardons from the presidents; it’s why the MTGA trots one out monstrous bird before the governor, only to later subject it to certain death. You could say that’s why Racket devoted hundreds of dollars, dozens of work hours, and three stressed tummies to the pursuit of eating and ranking the pre-made Thanksgiving turkeys available at major Twin Cities supermarkets.
But you’d only be half right. Looming as large as a steroid-jacked factory farm gobbler in our journalistic memories? The fact this humble ranking of grocery store rotisserie chickens, through some act of god and/or deal with satan, remains the most-read Racket story ever, having topped 100,000 pageviews. It’s our chased feathery dragon, forever several steps ahead in the Google Analytics spreadsheet.
Our attempt to capture lightning in a bottle twice will likely fail, to torture yet another metaphor. The chickens are easy-breezy dinners you pick up every other month or so for $10; the turkeys, all them fully cooked in advance and often part of prepackaged Thanksgiving dinner spreads, are expensive appointment dining for a subset of holiday hosts who don’t wanna fuss with the rigamarole of thawing, brining, rubbing, roasting, etc. Ya know, busy small families, Friendsgiving crews, or desperate media professionals.
Before we dig into the findings, some logistical table setting!
The rankings below are based just on toothsomeness of the turkeys, though we reserved the right to riff on sides where applicable. Several turkeys were only available with larger meal packages, so the price per bird—let alone price per pound—gets a little fuzzy. Each turkey came cold and pre-cooked, thus removing any potential customer error from the equation. This contest comes down to how much or how little care the grocery puts into its marquee Thanksgiving dish.
Anyway, you get the drill: We stuffed our faces yet again for your amusement. Happy Thanksgiving!
5. Lunds & Byerlys
Cost: $99
Bird: A true mystery bird, this 14-pounder arrived with no real description or cooking instructions.
Animal Welfare Claims: None. That can’t be good, right? The “all natural” poultry product was free from antibiotics, nitrates and nitrites, gluten, and growth promotants, according to the Lunds-branded label.
Appearance: The Mark McGwire of turkeys, and (for legal reasons) we call it that without any implications of steroid abuse. Let’s just say that none of the other turkeys in the turkey yard would’ve fucked with this guy. Pale, bulky, possibly very sad pre-processing plant.
Taste: While not literally as dry as sawdust, very similar in texture. Even the dark meat was somehow dry? Not much flavor but some indescribable aftertaste. Of the many foodstuffs on Earth that can provide you with sustenance, this is not the one to choose.
Dishin’ on Sides: N/A. The bird itself was so pricey we opted out of sides.
Verdict: No dinner shared with your loved ones can truly be considered a disaster, right? Right? Anyway, just keep telling yourself that as everyone at the table struggles to swallow this mediocre behemoth. At least your family will be able to bond over “Remember the year we got the turkey at Lund’s?” stories at future Thanksgiving dinners.
4. Whole Foods
Cost: $99.99 with sides
Bird: This dainty 8.3-pounder came from Mary’s Turkeys, a purported family farm in Sanger, California, whose website is rinkydink enough to at least half-believe it.
Animal Welfare Claims: Mary's raises organic turkeys, organic heirloom turkeys, and something called regenerative turkey, though ours was simply labeled “antibiotic-free turkey.” That designation comes with two badges—Animal Welfare Certified and Certified Humane—the latter of which we’ll get into more later. If you can understand these illustrations, you’re a better turkey welfare investigator than us.
Appearance: By far the scrawniest fella we encountered. Is it the Rudy of the group, able to deliver despite its stature due to heart and loving preparation? Not really.
Taste: Its modest meat reserves come smoked to the point of resembling jerky. That made for a tougher chewing experience, but the mesquite smokiness wasn’t unpleasant. You’re not getting a ton of bird, which is reflected in the overall price.
Dishin’ on Sides: Considering this came with mashed potatoes, green beans, (regrettably gloopy) stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce, you gotta give this package its bargain flowers. The sides were all mid, as the kids say, and the packaging was “so cute,” as the young worker at the customer service desk said.
Verdict: With its massive scale and supervillain ownership, Whole Foods is able to offer a complete Thanksgiving meal for $100, which ain’t nothing. Being forced to place the order through Amazon doesn’t feel great, and that company's obsession with ruthlessly efficient fulfillment wasn’t evident as we waited around 10 minutes to get our grub.
3. Cub
Cost: $159.99 with evil sides
Bird: Cub and Hy-Vee provided identical products: Butterball brand oven-cooked turkeys. Butterball is a monstrous mega-corporation, one that’s synonymous with cruel, hyper-industrialized meat production. Its parent company, publicly traded Fortune 500 Seaboard Corp., was once excoriated by TIME magazine in the investigative feature “Corporate Welfare: The Empire Of The Pigs.” Yummo!
Animal Welfare Claims: Somehow, our birds came festooned with American Humane Certified labels. Take that with a sizable grain of salt. For a potentially more realistic look at how Butterball treats its animals, Google the company’s name and search under news; the current results are not for the faint of heart.
Appearance: Credit to the Butterball food engineers for a) being able to sleep at night; b) concocting a turkey that’s colored and textured close to the cartoon ideal.
Taste: It’s hard to overstate how low our expectations were… but… goddamn, it’s a really good-tasting turkey! Perhaps this bypassed being a sad, slimy, science experiment mess due to its smaller stature. Ours came with crackling brown skin (thank you added caramel color), juicy dark meat, and white meat that went down easy with a splash of gravy.
Dishin’ on Sides: Unholy. Hateful. Worthy of jail time which, ironically, would put you inside an institution that might provide better food. Sitting lifeless and limp at the bottom of our enormous cardboard box were giant, unmarked sleeves filled with nearly liquified mashed potatoes, corn, gravy, and sweet potatoes. We didn’t open the heaving plastic sacks to sample the gruel inside—look below and tell us you would. Be honest! Cub’s yellowish pumpkin pie sucked too, although the King’s Hawaiian rolls proved reliably delightful.
Verdict: Unfortunately, the worst practices of industrialized American meat churned out a product that rivals the more preparation-intensive turkey you prepare fresh from start to finish.
2. Hy-Vee
Cost: $119.99 with sides
Bird: See above.
Animal Welfare Claims: Again, see above.
Appearance: See above, but imagine it three pounds smaller.
Taste: Again, it stinks to give the penultimate prize to a producer that epitomizes factory-farmed cruelty, but the damn thing tastes great.
Dishin’ on Sides: Remember when we stipulated that sides have no bearing on this competition? We lied! (Just a little…) To avoid a tie, considering Cub and Hyvee provide identical turkeys, we’re giving the slight edge to Hyvee based on its sides not being poor substitutes for dog food. Now, we’re not talking about great sides; the mac ‘n’ cheese is flavorless and runny and the “holiday potatoes” hit with weird sourness. But these sides appear in proper containers, come peppered with give-a-shit accents like chives and oil drizzles, and, generally, inspire the will to live—the opposite of Cub’s. As for the take ‘n’ bake buns? Not bad!
Verdict: If you’ve got a youth basketball team to feed, this won’t disappoint or inspire. For the only precooked Thanksgiving meal we can endorse with enthusiasm, keep reading…
1. Kowalski's Markets
Cost: $59.99
Bird: The prepared whole turkey from Kowalski’s comes from Ferndale Market in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, which has been raising free-range turkeys without growth hormones or antibiotics for generations. John Peterson, who runs the farm with his family, recently recently told Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, “Being a turkey farmer means you’re busy in November, but you get to see just about everyone you know, because they need a turkey from us in November just like their parents and grandparents needed a turkey from us in November.”
Animal Welfare Claims: “Ferndale turkeys grow naturally, without the use of antibiotics or artificial growth promotants,” according to the turkey raising practices page on the farm’s website. “During the temperate months, they are rotated on fresh pasture so they have access to clean air and fresh grass. We don’t think there’s any substitute for excellent care and husbandry and we take pride in creating an environment that maintains turkey health without medications.”
Appearance: Modestly sized at 10 pounds, this bad boy emerged from the oven looking like a prop for a cozy dinner scene in some ’90s family movie, its golden-brown skin glistening with promise, perhaps in part due to the melted butter we spooned over it per Kowalski’s cooking instructions. Plate it on a bed of greens, maybe toss some citrus wedges on there, and no one would know you didn’t prepare it yourself.
Taste: Turns out a ‘roid-free, cage-free existence makes Kowalski’s turkey a mighty fine Thanksgiving centerpiece. Or maybe something secret in the preparation is to thank? Whatever it is, this bird is tender, juicy, and surprisingly flavorful for a turkey (no offense, turkeys), with just a hint of smokiness at play. No one at your table would be disappointed upon sinking their teeth into this. Well, maybe the vegetarians.
Dishin’ on Sides: Agreeable sweet potatoes, stuffing, rolls, and poultry gravy, plus a legit delicious pumpkin pie. Journalist ethics compel us to disclose the fact that, due to some sort of switcheroo, we were given the $150 four-person meal, which includes all these sides, when in fact all we ordered was the $60 turkey. The in-store side dishes (ours came via nondescript cardboard box) did look superior to what we received, especially the garlic mashed potatoes with flecks of red peel (ours were frozen, uniform, and pure white).
Verdict: Look, we wanted an underdog (underbird?) to walk away with the title, but Kowalski’s prepared poultry bona fides remain unchallenged—theirs was also the champion in our local rotisserie chicken ranking. This is just far and away the best turkey we tried.
