2026 Heritage Thanksgiving Turkey Premiere!

Heritage Foods turns 25 years old today!

Thank you so much for your support over all these years to advance our Slow Food inspired mission to increase demand for meat from America’s oldest breeds of livestock!

25 years ago we launched with heritage turkeys at a time when the only turkey available for purchase in America was a modern fast-growing white feathered broad breasted dry and crumbly bird. The healthier, balanced, traditional breeds were on the brink of extinction and we learned we had to eat them to save them.

 
Every year since 1956 and on a larger scale since 2002, Master Breeder Frank Reese has ignited the incubator and heated the brooding machine at his hatchery to grow (and preserve) eight rare breeds of 19th and early 20th Century heritage turkeys. Frank’s network consists of 12 farms, and to date hundreds of independent farmers around the nation have followed Frank’s lead and populated their land with heirloom breeds. As a result, the quality and flavor at the American Thanksgiving dinner table has improved.

This is the best tasting turkey you'll ever eat — extremely juicy white meat, deeply flavorful and rich dark meat, and skin your guests will rave about! We are proud of Frank and his protégé Jed Greenberg for creating and codifying Consortium Standards for Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch assuring flock quality. See the full protocols below. Traceability has been a guiding value of Heritage Foods since we began. We hope you enjoy this year’s flock on your holiday table.