These winners go to the White House, losers go to Subway
Here’s something to chew on as you eat your next turkey sandwich at Subway: The bird you are digesting might have been a runner-up to a turkey “pardoned” just before Thanksgiving by President Bush.
But there’s more.
Your Subway turkey was raised on feed products made by Nicholasville-based Alltech, chief sponsor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.
You see, the pardoned turkey came from Iowa’s Circle Hill Farms, a $150 million family business that uses Alltech products to raise 700,000 turkeys a year.
Circle Hill is also a major Subway supplier.
The pardoned turkey was hatched in July and selected when it was 9-weeks old as one of 13 finalists for the White House trip.
Alltech says the finalists were monitored “to determine which one had the best personality to meet the first family and deal with the press.”
(Ever interview a turkey? Don’t get me started.)
A “vice presidential” turkey also was chosen in case the first turkey couldn’t fulfill his duties, Alltech says.
The two birds were flown to Washington, D.C., where they were pardoned before being flown to California to be grand marshals of Disneyland’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. They will live out their lives in the Magic Kingdom.
Meanwhile, “the president and his family will be feasting on two dressed turkeys also raised on our products this Thanksgiving,” notes Alltech President Pearse Lyons.
So a lame duck is eating turkeys that weren’t good enough to be pardoned or bad enough to be cold cuts. Things are tough all over.
