LANSING — Turkey production is expected to rise with a $250,000 grant to encourage innovative marketing to bring more jobs and revenue to West Michigan.

The Michigan Department of Agriculture awarded the grant to Michigan Turkey Producers in Grand Rapids for equipment to keep up with increasing demand, said Bridget Beckman, press officer for the department.

Michigan Turkey Producers is a cooperative of 43 farms in West Michigan, owned by 16 growers.

The agricultural innovation grant is apart of the 21st Century Jobs Plan, which will award $10 million in grants to diversify the economy over the next two years, Beckman said.

The state raises more than 4.5 million turkeys annually creating a $75 million industry, according to the Michigan Turkey Producers.

The cooperative buys all its meat from local and state turkey farms, said Dan Lennon, president of the organization.

The marketing of turkey products has been growing over the last six years.  In 2000 Michigan Turkey Producers built its first raw processing plant to slaughter birds and sell the meat, uncooked and unsliced, Lennon said.

For two years that was as much as the organization did.  Then in 2003 the market hit a wall and prices dropped.

“Too much turkey and not enough people eating — classic economics.” Lennon said. “You can literally find yourself selling meat below the cost to produce it. It’s pretty frustrating.”

In 2004, the state solicited bids for cooked turkey to feed prisoners, so Michigan Turkey Producers came up with a plan to win that contract, he said. The state agreed to buy from the cooperative and contract with somebody else to cook it.

A year later, the revenue was high enough to build a facility to make a basic commodity — turkey — into value-added products by cooking its own fowl and making specialty deli meats.

That move took it out of the tipsy pull of supply and demand into a market where producers determine price, Lennon said.

“The difficulty of being in the commodity arena is that you are more susceptible and cannot set price,” he said. Specialty meats such as honey-baked, lemon and garlic seasonings are several of its newest products. 

Soon contracts for co-packing —producing turkey under another company’s label — were reached. One such company, Willowbrook Foods, sells its Costco products across the nation, under a contract so large Michigan Turkey Productions facilities are nearly at capacity, Lennon said.

The plant cooks about eight million pounds of meat a year, he said.

“This business is so large that we’re always on the ragged edge to get things done,” Lennon said.

The grant from the state includes $100,000 for a continuous oil fryer to quintuple the amount of meat fried, he said. The remaining $150,000 is for a down payment on an oven that will cook up to an additional six million pounds each year and provide 20 new jobs at its Wyoming plant, Lennon said.

Sietsema Farms provide Michigan Turkey Producers with about a quarter of the turkey used, said owner Harley Sietsema, who also chairs the cooperative.

His farms, several co-owned with his children or key employees, are in Ottawa, Muskegon and Newaygo counties.

The farms have not seen an increase in the number of turkeys sold to the cooperative yet, but Sietsema said the equipment purchased with the grant will bring economic predictability to his farms because value-added products are a stable market.

The move to value-added products will eventually lead to competition with larger turkey companies on the national level, he said, which means growth for his farms.

 “Michigan is a relatively small production factor on the national scope. Our production system here is the only turkey producing-area in the state,” Sietsema said.

“It’s one of the building blocks to eventually allow us to successfully expand our farm operation,” Sietsema said.

There were 225 applicants for grants, and only 40 were awarded, Beckman said.

“Michigan’s agricultural industry is a $60.1 billion industry, compared to the auto industry which is approximately $80 billion,” she said. “When you look at the 40 grants that were awarded, you see a tremendous amount of diversity. There is so much potential for growth.”