Hoping to go beyond the traditional Thanksgiving dinner table, turkey enthusiasts plan to make the meat a staple on fast-food menus through a federally funded project at MSU.
Wyoming, Mich.-based Michigan Turkey Producers Cooperative recently received a $55,574 federal grant to research new turkey products that U.S. fast-food restaurants could potentially offer.
The group's president, Dan Lennon, decided to conduct the study at the MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources and a Boston-based research firm because of his previous experience with the two facilities.
"With MSU, I know they can create more than just a research document," Lennon said. "They'll explore the opportunity and market completely.
"Down the road, they can produce something tangible."
Lennon said the meat products that are readily available are made of chicken, beef and fish. He said it is time for turkey to become an option.
"You can't find anything with turkey," he said. "The opportunity is out there, though."
Tom Kalchik, associate director of MSU's Product Center, is on the advisory council created to help implement the grant. He said the council has met to go through the preliminary information.
"Our goal is to create a hot turkey meat for the fast-food industry," Kalchik said.
He said a variety of factors have to be considered in order to reach that goal.
"The taste of the consumers, the ability to manufacture the meat, how the products would move along the supply chain to the stores and how they'd fit into the system that the stores have," Kalchik said. "If we come up with a meat that needs to be microwaved and the stores don't have that option, then it wouldn't be practical."
Although Lennon and Kalchik said they believe the turkey possibilities will be a hit, communication sophomore Krista Ciccone said that sandwich shops would probably be the only fast-food restaurants to benefit.
"It wouldn't work at McDonald's, Burger King, things like that," Ciccone said. "I don't think it'd get off the ground or be worth the cost of production."
Andrew Smith, a general business administration and pre-law freshman, also said he would never consider turkey when ordering fast food.
"I wouldn't buy the turkey products myself," Smith said. "When I think of 'fast food,' I get a hamburger."
