Turkey Production (United States) — NAICS 11233

1. Overview

NAICS 11233 is the Turkey Production industry — the on-farm stage of raising turkeys for meat and for the breeding eggs that hatch the next flock. (NAICS is the North American Industry Classification System, the federal code that sorts businesses by activity.) At this five-digit level the industry has exactly one child, the six-digit code 112330, which carries the identical definition. So NAICS 11233 and 112330 are, for practical purposes, the same industry described at two levels of the same code tree.

Because this level is a pass-through to a single child, this page is deliberate short: it states what the level is, gives the ground-truth figures we hold for it, and points you to the full 112330 — Turkey Production primer for the detailed treatment of economics, companies, regulation, and how to invest.

The one-line economics carry through unchanged: turkey farming is a biological commodity business run inside a highly concentrated processing system. Producers earn on the spread between feed cost and bird price, margins are thin in normal years, and the single biggest swing factor is disease — avian influenza. In 2025 the farm value of turkeys produced jumped 51% to $5.58 billion even as bird numbers fell, because bird-flu losses tightened supply and lifted prices [1].

2. What's inside — and why the level equals its one child

NAICS classifies from broad to narrow: sector (2-digit) → subsector (3) → industry group (4) → NAICS industry (5-digit) → national industry (6-digit). Most five-digit industries fan out into several six-digit children. 11233 does not — it contains a single child:

Because there is just one child, everything that is true of 112330 is true of 11233. The scope is establishments primarily engaged in raising turkeys, whether for slaughter or for hatching-egg (breeder) production [5]. What sits outside the code is what matters most for reading the numbers: poultry hatcheries (112340) that sell day-old poults, and poultry processing (311615) — the slaughter-and-packing plants, a manufacturing code where most of the industry's revenue and control actually sit [5]. Meat chickens (112320), layer/egg chickens (112310), and other poultry such as ducks and geese (112390) are separate codes. For the full structure — the integrator-versus-grower split that defines the business, contract-production trends, and the concentration above the farm — see the 112330 primer.

3. How big it is (this level's figures)

We hold no ingested federal business statistics keyed to NAICS 11233 itself. Our ground-truth stats file for this node is empty of metrics, so the figures below are carried up from the single child 112330 and its cited federal sources, not measured independently at the five-digit level. Two structural caveats apply, exactly as at the child level:

• Undercount of small/family operators. Standard Census Bureau business programs (Economic Census, County Business Patterns) largely exclude crop and animal production, self-employed operators, and businesses with no paid employees — so farm units are undercounted here. Agriculture is instead counted in USDA's Census of Agriculture [6]. The gap is farms and family growers, not government coverage.
• USDA measures volume and farm value, not NAICS receipts. USDA's turkey figures are a production proxy, not a business-revenue figure for the code.

The one clean business metric we can attach to this level is the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) size standard of $3.75 million in average annual receipts — the ceiling below which a turkey farm counts as "small" for federal purposes [4]. Most contract growers sit well under it, which tells you how small the farm units are relative to the integrators that own the birds. We do not have a Census establishment count, employment, payroll, or total-receipts figure for 11233; those should not be inferred.

USDA's production proxies (all national, carried from 112330):

Roughly 2,500 farms, mostly family operations, raise the nation's turkeys, while the economic weight concentrates in a few dozen large processing plants run by a handful of companies [8][9].

4. Investable universe — where the value sits

Because the level equals its one child, the investable map is identical to 112330's, and the headline holds: there is no U.S.-listed pure-play turkey producer. Every public handle is a minority slice of a much larger food company, and most of the real turkey economics live in private firms and grower cooperatives.

• Public, indirect only: Hormel Foods (HRL) via its Jennie-O turkey business is the closest listed exposure; Seaboard (SEB) via a 50% equity stake in Butterball; Tyson Foods (TSN) as a minor turkey line inside Prepared Foods. In each case turkey is diluted by far larger businesses and not separately disclosed [10][11][12].
• Private owners/processors and cooperatives are where value concentrates: Butterball LLC (largest U.S. producer), Cargill (Honeysuckle White, Shady Brook Farms — now restructuring), Farbest Foods, Prestage Farms, Perdue Farms, Foster Farms (owned by private-equity firm Atlas Holdings), Cooper Farms, and grower-owned West Liberty Foods and Michigan Turkey Producers [13][14][15][16][20][21][22].

Full company detail, tickers, and the concentration picture are in the 112330 primer (Sections 4 and 8).

5. How the money works

Unchanged from the child level: producers earn a crush-style margin — bird price minus feed cost minus grow-out cost.

• Feed is roughly 65–70% of production cost, with corn and soybean meal about 82–87% of the feed, so the grain market is the single biggest swing factor [33][34].
• Wholesale bird price carries the cycle: USDA's national frozen whole-hen average was just $0.94/lb in 2024 — a five-year low — then rose toward $1.32/lb (2025) and a forecast $1.65/lb (2026) as bird-flu losses tightened supply, easing back toward $1.30/lb forecast for 2027 as production recovers [2][3][34].
• Contract growers earn a service fee per bird against largely fixed costs (barns, equipment, mortgage); the integrator carries feed and price risk, which is why farm-level receipts stay under the $3.75M small-business line [4][7].

Farm value rose 51% in 2025 despite 3% fewer birds [1] — price did the work, the signature of a supply-shock commodity rather than a growth industry. See 112330 for the full margin and grower-economics treatment.

6. Demand drivers

• Holiday seasonality — whole-bird demand concentrates around Thanksgiving and Christmas.
• Further-processed turkey (deli meat, ground turkey, sausage) is the growth engine; whole birds are the drag.
• Secular decline in per-capita eating — U.S. per-capita turkey consumption fell to about 13.8 lbs in 2024 (est. 13.1 lbs in 2025) from 15.9 lbs in 2019, as turkey competes with cheaper, more efficient chicken [3].
• Exports — about 9.5% of U.S. turkey meat was exported in 2024, with Mexico the dominant market [3]; a swing factor, not a reliable growth lever.

7. Regulation

The regulatory stack is identical to the child's. Food safety runs through USDA FSIS (Food Safety and Inspection Service) under the Poultry Products Inspection Act, falling mainly on processing plants [23]. Animal health runs through USDA APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service), which manages the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI, "bird flu") response — surveillance, mandatory depopulation, and indemnity payments for destroyed birds — arguably the most consequential regulation for the industry [24]. Grower-contract fairness sits under the Packers and Stockyards Act (USDA AMS) [25]; large barns can trigger EPA Clean Water Act CAFO permitting [26]; and FDA's Veterinary Feed Directive governs antibiotics [27]. Full detail in 112330, Section 7.

8. Consolidation

This is a highly concentrated oligopoly. A 2023 U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) complaint described the top four processors — Butterball, Jennie-O, Cargill, and Farbest — as more than half the market by live pounds processed, and the top ten as more than 80% [28]. The map is actively reshuffling: Cargill's 2025 Springdale, Arkansas plant closure and reported divestiture, Tyson's purchase of that shuttered site, and Pitman Family Farms' potential rise into the top tier all point to an industry consolidating and repositioning at once [18][19]. Concentration has drawn antitrust scrutiny — a price-fixing class action over data-sharing through analytics firm Agri Stats, with a 2026 DOJ settlement and varied private outcomes (Cargill settled for $32.5M; Perdue and Foster Farms were cleared) [29][30][31]. See 112330, Section 8, for the full account.

9. Risks

The risk set is the child's, in order of weight:

• HPAI / disease — the dominant risk. Bird flu affected roughly 14.2 million turkeys in 2024 and carried into 2025; with no widely deployed U.S. commercial turkey vaccine yet, an outbreak means depopulation, supply loss, and price whiplash [24][32].
• Feed-cost volatility — feed at roughly two-thirds of cost means a corn or soybean rally hits margins directly [33].
• Secular demand decline in whole-bird consumption [3].
• Extreme cyclicality — the 2024→2025 swing from five-year-low prices to a 51% jump in farm value shows how fast the economics invert [1][3].
• Contract and debt risk for growers, commodity/low-differentiation pricing pressure, antitrust and regulatory exposure, and export concentration on Mexico [3][18][28][29].

10. How to invest and outlook

Public routes are indirect only — Hormel (HRL) is the closest, then Seaboard (SEB) and Tyson (TSN), with turkey diluted by much larger businesses in every case. Private routes are more direct: owning or financing contract-grower barns, taking a stake in a private processor or grower cooperative, or holding turkey farmland — all capital-intensive and usually tied to a single processor's contract. The full how-to-invest framework, including the questions to ask and the underwriting checklist, is in the 112330 primer (Section 10).

Outlook — a cyclical recovery, not a growth story. Bird-flu-tightened supply lifted 2025 prices and farm value sharply [1], and USDA expects 2026 output and prices to rise as the flock rebuilds with feed costs easing [2][34] — a widening feed-to-bird margin if it holds. But USDA's 2027 forecast has hen prices falling back toward $1.30/lb as supply returns [2], and the structural headwinds are real: whole-bird per-capita demand keeps sliding [3], and another severe HPAI season could spike prices or wipe out flocks. This remains a cyclical commodity-protein business — best read through feed costs, bird prices, and the bird-flu map rather than through steady growth.

For full detail on every section above, see the child primer: NAICS 112330 — Turkey Production.

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Sources

1. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Poultry — Production and Value 2025 Summary (April 2026). https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/plva0426.pdf
2. USDA Economic Research Service, Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook (July 2026, LDP-M-385). https://www.ers.usda.gov/media/29361/ldp-m-385.pdf
3. USDA Economic Research Service, "Turkey Sector: Background & Statistics" (2025). https://www.ers.usda.gov/newsroom/trending-topics/turkey-sector-background-statistics
4. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards (2023) — NAICS 112330, $3.75 million receipts. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
5. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 NAICS Definition: 112330 Turkey Production." https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=112330&year=2022
6. U.S. Census Bureau, "County Business Patterns — Methodology / Coverage" and "Economic Census: Understanding NAICS." https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
7. USDA Economic Research Service, "Farm Structure and Contracting." https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-structure-and-organization/farm-structure-and-contracting
8. Investigate Midwest, "Who really owns your Thanksgiving turkey?" (2025). https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/11/24/who-really-owns-your-thanksgiving-turkey/
9. National Turkey Federation, "About America's Turkey Industry." https://www.eatturkey.org/industry/
10. Hormel Foods Corporation, FY2025 Annual Report. https://www.hormelfoods.com/about/investors/
11. Tyson Foods, Inc., 2025 Form 10-K. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/100493/000010049325000095/tsn-20250927.htm
12. Seaboard Corporation, 2025 Form 10-K. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/88121/000008812126000012/seb-20251231x10k.htm
13. Butterball LLC financial statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (via Seaboard). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/88121/000008812118000012/seb-20171231ex991ad7354.htm
14. Farbest Foods, "About Farbest Foods." https://farbestfoods.com/
15. Prestage Farms, "Wholesome Turkey." https://www.prestagefarms.com/turkey
16. Perdue Farms, "Company and Brands." https://corporate.perduefarms.com/
17. Cargill, "U.S. Turkey Business." https://www.cargill.com/meat-poultry/us-turkey-business
18. WATTAgNet, "An end to Cargill's vertically integrated turkey business?" (2025). https://www.wattagnet.com/blogs/agrifood-angle/news/15814247/an-end-to-cargills-vertically-integrated-turkey-business
19. Talk Business & Politics, "Cargill to shutter turkey operation in Springdale" (2025); Meatingplace, "Tyson Foods buys shuttered Cargill poultry plant." https://talkbusiness.net/2025/01/cargill-to-shutter-turkey-operation-in-springdale/
20. Atlas Holdings, "Atlas Holdings Completes Acquisition of Foster Farms" (June 2022). https://www.atlasholdingsllc.com/news/atlas-holdings-completes-acquisition-of-foster-farms/
21. West Liberty Foods, "About Us." https://www.wlfoods.com/about-us/
22. Michigan Turkey Producers, "About Us." https://miturkey.com/about-us/
23. USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, "Food Safety Acts" (Poultry Products Inspection Act). https://www.fsis.usda.gov/policy/food-safety-acts
24. USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, "HPAI Indemnity and Compensation." https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-poultry/indemnity-compensation
25. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, "Growers' Rights in Poultry Growing Arrangements" (Packers and Stockyards Act). https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/packers-and-stockyards-act/regulated-entities/growers-rights-poultry
26. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Agricultural Animal Production" (CAFO / NPDES / Clean Water Act). https://www.epa.gov/agriculture/agricultural-animal-production
27. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, "Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD)." https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/development-approval-process/veterinary-feed-directive-vfd
28. U.S. Department of Justice, Second Amended Complaint: U.S. v. Agri Stats, Inc. (2023). https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-11/418025.pdf
29. U.S. Department of Justice, "Justice Department Requires Agri Stats to End Exchange of Competitively Sensitive Information" (May 2026). https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-agri-stats-end-exchange-competitively-sensitive-information
30. Star Tribune, "Cargill pays $32.5M to settle customer lawsuit alleging turkey price-fixing" (2025). https://www.startribune.com/cargill-settle-turkey-lawsuit-antitrust-price-fixing-agri-stats-class-action/601208920
31. PYMNTS, "Federal Court Narrows Turkey Price-Fixing Lawsuit, Clears Perdue and Foster Farms" (2025). https://www.pymnts.com/cpi-posts/federal-court-narrows-turkey-price-fixing-lawsuit-clears-perdue-and-foster-farms/
32. American Farm Bureau Federation, "Turkey Farmers Brace for Uptick in HPAI" (2025). https://www.fb.org/market-intel/turkey-farmers-brace-for-uptick-in-hpai
33. The Poultry Site, "Turkey Feeding and Nutrition" (U.S. Poultry Industry Manual). https://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/turkey-feeding-and-nutrition
34. PoultryHatch, "USDA Raises 2025 Turkey Price Forecast to 131.5¢/lb — Feed Costs" (2025). https://www.poultryhatch.com/2025/10/usda-raises-2025-turkey-price-forecast-to-131-5-cents-per-pound.html