Before most of us even finish arguing over leftovers, Butterball is already gearing up for next year’s Thanksgiving. “Preparation for the next Thanksgiving season starts shortly after the current one concludes,” says Dan Bohlman, Director of Logistics at Butterball. While the rest of us are settling into winter, his team is mapping out cold storage allocations in January and kicking transportation planning into gear by Q3.
It’s a year-long warm-up for a holiday that hits the same week every year but somehow never plays out the same way twice.
Forecasting for Thanksgiving sits in that strange tension between guaranteed demand and endlessly shifting customer needs. Historical trends help, but Bohlman says the real secret weapon is the human expertise behind the scenes. “We rely on our experienced sales team, who work closely with customers to understand their specific needs each year.”
And then there’s the split personality of turkey itself: frozen vs. fresh. Frozen birds give planners some breathing room thanks to longer shelf life and more flexible production schedules. Fresh, on the other hand, is where things get dicey, limited shelf life, narrow production windows, and the universal truth that grocery stores never have as much cooler space as they wish they did. “Fresh product demand is more challenging due to shelf life and a shorter time frame to produce,” Bohlman says.
By the time October hits, the calm evaporates. Thousands of truckloads begin moving in just a few short weeks as fresh season ramps up, transforming the turkey industry into one giant, refrigerated rush hour.
To keep the cold chain tight during this surge, Butterball deploys an entire arsenal: temperature probes throughout cold storage facilities, product temp checks at every handling step, and portable recording devices riding shotgun on every truck like tiny, very judgmental copilots. As Bohlman puts it, “We use various industry-leading methods to ensure cold-chain integrity from start to finish.”
And because holidays don’t pause for blizzards, labor shortages, or a surprise transportation crunch, Butterball’s contingency playbook is equally robust. The team pre-positions product closer to customers, pulls additional labor from partner facilities, builds in extra transit time, uses team drivers, and even relays loads between multiple drivers when necessary. “Our goal is always to minimize the impact of disruptions, no matter where they come from,” says Bohlman.
Internally, the vibe shifts completely once mid-October rolls around. Daily customer service and production calls begin. Tracking reports start hitting inboxes twice a day. Plants, warehouses, and support teams stretch shifts, add hours, and lean into the grind. Butterball even sends personnel directly to warehouses to manage shipping activities and troubleshoot issues in real time. By November, every lever is pulled and every hand is on deck. Or as Bohlman sums it up: “The Thanksgiving busy season is an all-hands-on-deck effort; it is our Super Bowl.”
What consumers rarely think about is just how complicated it is to get the exact right turkey, weight, spec, temperature, timing, onto their table. Fresh whole birds alone involve dozens of variables, all funneling into a single week. One hiccup could ripple across an entire region. And yet, most years, shoppers stroll into stores and find exactly what they need.
That reliability depends on more than refrigerated trailers and planning calendars. It starts at the farm level, where flock health is monitored obsessively. “Maintaining overall flock health and supply consistency is our biggest challenge,” Bohlman says. Thanks to strict biosecurity and prevention practices, Butterball has seen minimal disruption this season and retailers should stay fully stocked.
Looking ahead, Butterball is eyeing new technologies to sharpen the process even further. “AI is certainly an area we are curious about,” Bohlman says. From routing to forecasting to operational efficiency, the team sees plenty of opportunity for next-generation tools to turn the annual scramble into something a little smoother.
For now, though, the sprint continues, from planning that starts before winter ends to the final mad dash in November. Behind every turkey on every table sits a year of preparation, a nationwide refrigerated relay race, and a logistics team treating Thanksgiving like the championship it is.