They see the Asda move as a shameful betrayal of British agriculture. Besides that the farmers complain about the huge waste of energy to buy, freeze and ship thousands of turkeys from 6,000 miles away when they could offer locally reared turkeys.
Asda is understood to have flown in two consignments of whole turkeys and turkey crowns from Brazil thought to total more than 30,000 birds.
However, the Daily Mail said that it subsequently decided not to go ahead with the sale of the whole frozen turkeys because it was unhappy with the taste of the baste used to keep the bird moist during cooking.
Asda sold the Brazilian turkey crown at £5.33 per kilo, which is a little bit cheaper than a frozen British equivalent, which costs £6.17 a kilo. It was said that Asda made and extra £100,000 from bringing in turkeys from Brazil.
An Asda spokesman told the Daily Mail: “It's the quality and taste of our food that we care about most, no matter where it comes from.”
