Friday, October 19, 2012

Turkey: Where have they all gone?

Recently on social media, a number of people have queried where their favourite brands of Turkey have gone. I contacted the Municipality in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and neither had the brands on their banned list, which they said meant it was a federal issue. I contacted Spinneys instead of the  Ministry of Environment and Water- because I knew it would be a quicker response! Their marketing department was very kind to respond with the email below:


Dear Feyaza,
Thank you for your query, which was forwarded to me from our customer service email address.
As you will appreciate we only sell Halal turkey on the main shop floor.
For whole turkeys; our regular supplier, Butter Ball, have decided to no longer supply halal turkeys – therefore our buyers have visited the USA to select another halal supplier that can meet with our exacting standards. The company we have selected Jennie-O Turkey Store, the turkeys are an all-natural product and selected for its great taste. Jennie-O has a well-deserved reputation for high quality products and have years of experience in turkey production and processing. The turkeys that we will sell from Jennie-O are certified Halal.
Regarding pre-packed turkey – we currently stock a range of brands including Trunkle from Austria and some local brands e.g. Khazan Vital.
Some of our US suppliers have decided to stop producing products for this market, however our buyers are looking to source some additional US/ international brands in order to offer a wider range to our customers.
In the deli counter (serve over) we have a number of local brands including Prime and Randa – these products are selling well however a gap has been created by the loss of dietz watson and butter ball, so our buyers are busy sourcing some other international brands that meet our quality, taste and halal requirements. We will also be expanding our range of Trunkle to include deli options.
We are also investigating the possibility of producing our own hahal versions from our state of the art production facility here in Dubai.
I hope this helps, if you have any further queries please feel free to contact me.
Kind regards,