MAFF seeks to ban turkeys for Christmas

20 November 1998

MAFF seeks to ban turkeys for Christmas

By FWi staff

THE Ministry of Agriculture is to ban the traditional farm-fresh Christmas turkey.

Jeff Rooker, the food safety minister, believes the birds pose a hygiene threat.

Mr Rooker wants the turkeys disembowelled in licensed slaughterhouses as they are in the rest of the European Union.

Butchers would no longer be buy turkeys from farmers with the head, feet and giblets still intact, reports The Times today (Friday).

Turkey farmers believe the change would force many of them out of business.

About 40,000 traditional birds are sold each year, against 10 million of the intensively-reared varieties.