Turkey Hotline Numbers

When you think "Thanksgiving", what comes to mind?   Turkey!   In celebrating this harvest festival Americans will cook approximately 45 million turkeys.  With that many turkeys there's bound to be a few fiascos on November 27.  Many of the turkey processors have set up hotlines to help panicked callers with preparation of those big, big pesky birds.  Butterball launched the first help line in 1981 and today, staffed with 45 home economists and nutritionists, answers over 100,000 questions between November and December.

Consensus from the various industry websites ranks thawing as the number one problem with preparing the holiday bird.  The National Turkey Federation recommends allowing approximately 24 hours for every five pounds of bird weight for thawing in the refrigerator.  For a 16 to 20 pound turkey this equates to 3 to 4 days of thawing time.

From thawing questions, how big of bird to get, to cooking a turkey on a cookie sheet, the hotlines have heard it all and are there ready to help ease the stress of holiday meal planning.

Butterball Turkey Hotline (800) 288-8372                     

Empire Kosher Poultry Hotline (800) 367-4734            

Foster Farms Turkey Help line (800) 255-7227           

HoneySuckle White Turkey (800) 810-6325                 

Reynolds Turkey Tip Line (800) 745-4000                    

Shadybrook Farms Dial a Chef (800) 723-4468            

USDA Meat & Poultry Hotline (800) 535-4555    

Non-turkey food questions

FDA hotline (888) SAFEFOOD, (888) 723-3366           

Food Safety