# A Turkey's Journey ## From farm to table – through the crucial, vulnerable, and exciting world of the supply chain. ### Introduction #### Follow a turkey’s journey from Mayberry to Plymouth As many Americans have discovered in recent years, the complex and mostly unseen supply chain is as vulnerable as it is critical. The good news is, the supply chain is already remarkably efficient, and there are many new innovations being deployed to improve the supply chain’s resilience and environmental footprint. We’ll highlight a few of these innovations and show the emissions reduction potential as we follow a fictional turkey’s journey from Mayberry, NC to Plymouth, MA. ### Farming the Feast #### Turkey production across the country and throughout the year. Roughly 210 million turkeys are produced in the United States each year, mainly from a handful of states like Minnesota and North Carolina. Of these, 46 million are destined for Thanksgiving tables. A full-grown turkey can weigh over 30 pounds, which then gets processed and shipped over 1,500 miles. All that comes with a hefty carbon footprint – largely from the farm, but also from the supply chain that connects the country’s roughly 2,500 turkey farms to our millions of tables. ### Barney's Broiler Farm #### Where 75 pounds of grain turns into a 30-pound turkey. Our turkey was born in early April at Barney’s Broiler Farm in Mayberry, North Carolina – near the town of Mount Airy. It grew for roughly 15 weeks on a diet of corn and soybean meal before being shipped out for processing. A typical turkey consumes nearly 75 pounds of feed during its life, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of the total cost of raising the bird. ### Andy's Transit #### Trucking the turkey to meet its maker. The full-grown turkey hops on a truck to the nearest processing plant in Wilkesboro, NC, 60 miles southeast. This is almost always a diesel-powered truck, but a few short-haul routes like this are being electrified. ### Pike Processing #### The supply chain’s biggest energy user. The plant, one of a few hundred in the country that processes turkeys, slaughters 24,000 birds a day. Before packaging, Pike must cool what’s left of the bird (now 10-15 pounds lighter) to 40°F or colder. This requires a lot of energy for refrigeration in addition to the energy used for loading and unloading, processing, and packaging. The remaining parts are either composted, rendered into animal feed, or disposed of. ### Skippy’s Refrigerated Trucking #### An electrification ice-breaker. The finished turkey is loaded onto a semi truck whose trailer is equipped with a Transit Refrigeration Unit or TRU, otherwise known as a reefer. This generator pre-cools the insulated trailer and then keeps it at or below 40°F throughout loading, transit, and unloading. ### Croatoan Cold Storage #### A story full of hidden opportunities. This regional storage facility is 2 football fields long and 30 feet high. Upon receiving a load, bundled up workers inspect the pallets to ensure quality and temperature compliance before taking them on electric or propane forklifts to a refrigerated storage area. ### Croatoan Cold Storage #### Blast Freezing They then load batches of 10-20 pallets onto the racks in a large blast freezer, which whips extremely cold air through the chamber for up to 36 hours at a time to quickly freeze the turkey. ### Frozen Fleet #### The longest leg (and the hardest to improve) As the season approaches, a long-haul trucker carries a trailer of frozen, palletized birds 700 miles to a grocery distribution center near Plymouth, Massachusetts. Virtually no long-haul routes are currently electrified, and the TRU also runs on diesel throughout the journey. ### Mayflower Foods #### A staging area before the final destination. Near Plymouth, the truck unloads at a grocery distribution center for local storage. Pallets may stay in the commercial freezer of this 50,000 square foot warehouse for 1-2 weeks before they’re ready to hit the shelves at a local grocery store. ### Plymouth Pantry #### Nearly home now, the turkey loads onto one final refrigerated truck destined for the store. ### The Last Leg #### A surprisingly important step. Finally, we pick up our bird and drive it home, roughly 6 miles round trip on average. Consolidating trips makes a huge difference. Buy local and natural options if you can, choose efficient transportation where feasible, and ALWAYS use the leftovers. Minimizing food waste is one of the most important things we can all do. ### Giving Thanks and Taking Stock #### An overview of reduction potential. As we enjoy the turkey with family and friends, we can take a moment to reflect on the impact from all the carbon and energy savings initiatives across the supply chain. In total, these optimizations reduce the total CO2 emissions for Thanksgiving turkeys by over 24,000 metric tons. Electric vehicles account for a large portion of the reductions, but there is no one silver bullet; the solution will have to be a diverse amalgamation of innovations.