The ‘Gold Standard' Christmas Turkey

Tired of turkey at Christmas? You haven’t tasted a traditional, free-range, organic bird

- Daniel Pembrey

For Tom Copas, a turkey is without doubt the most important part of the most important feast of the year. “A special Christmas dinner demands a special turkey,” says Copas, of Copas Traditional Turkeys in Berkshire, and to understand what makes Copas turkeys so special it is necessary to visit the family farm, which has occupied a vale beside the village of Cookham for more than 100 years.

With its neat fencing and picturesque cherry trees, the 82-acre farm has a landscaped feel to it, yet look closer and everywhere are the black dots of turkeys flecked with bronze in the low sun. Inherently curious, they move forward in waves as you approach. What makes the biggest impression, however, is just how free to range they are. “We give each bird at least four square metres,” remarks Copas. There are some 24,000 turkeys here on the farm.

Copas and his team are now staffing up for the culmination of the turkeys’ journey. The busy weeks ahead will see the birds prepared for delivery to butchers and homes around the country. It’s a journey that began at the end of May, during the long hot days of that spring bank holiday. Two hatcheries, Hockenhull and Farmgate, provide day-old poults to the farm.

Meanwhile, just two breed groups account for the vast majority of commercially grown turkeys in the UK: white, as preferred by most supermarkets; and bronze or black.

“One time we tried rearing Bourbon reds and it was a disaster,” recounts Copas. “There were problems with the turkeys bullying one another, and the shape and weight of the Bourbon reds simply weren’t right for the Christmas dinner table. They proved so hard to pluck, too, resembling hedgehogs given the stubs of the quills that we couldn’t extract despite our best efforts.”