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Even before shoppers hit Black Friday sales, Thanksgiving dinners drive nearly $2 billion in spending across the US. Here's a look at how some of the favorites make it to your holiday celebration.
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00:00:00Thanksgiving in the U.S. is big business.
00:00:03More than 160 million pounds of butter,
00:00:0780 million pounds of cranberries,
00:00:10and 46 million turkeys land on dinner tables across the U.S.,
00:00:15not counting the ones made of pastry.
00:00:18Here's a look at how some of our favorite Thanksgiving foods
00:00:21make it to our holiday tables.
00:00:24Cranberries bring a bright, tangy burst of flavor to Thanksgiving dinner,
00:00:28and Ocean Spray farmers are North America's top producers.
00:00:32But they only have six weeks to get 100 billion berries
00:00:36from the bog to grocery store shelves.
00:00:38Here's how they do it.
00:00:40Hi, Allison. How are you, honey?
00:00:42Awesome. How are you?
00:00:44Well, it all starts here in the bog.
00:00:46You might recognize it from those commercials.
00:00:48Hi. We're Ocean Spray cranberry growers.
00:00:50And this is our 100% juice.
00:00:53Starting in the middle of September,
00:00:55the Gilmore family begins preparing its 100 acres of bogs
00:00:57for the wet harvest.
00:00:59Normally, the bogs look like this.
00:01:00Come right on.
00:01:01Dry fields.
00:01:02You can walk on this and not damage it.
00:01:04The cranberries grow just like this
00:01:07in a layer of sand, peat, gravel, and clay.
00:01:10We use water to harvest the cranberries,
00:01:12but they don't grow submerged in water.
00:01:14Some of the cranberry vines here on the bog are almost 90 years old.
00:01:19When it's time to harvest,
00:01:20Allison will flood the bog with about a foot of water.
00:01:23Once we add the water, the cranberries start to float on the vine.
00:01:27Cranberries have four pockets of air inside.
00:01:30To knock the berries off those vines,
00:01:32farmers use a cranberry harvesting machine.
00:01:34You can fairly easily take them right off.
00:01:36The harrow that Ben is using, he actually built that.
00:01:40The berries pop off and float to the top.
00:01:42Then, for the fun part,
00:01:44farmers drop on some waders and trudge out into the water.
00:01:47The cranberries are all floating to the top,
00:01:50and we're standing on top of the vines.
00:01:52There isn't anything quite like the experience of standing in a bog,
00:01:56but it does feel like I'm being hugged by all the cranberries.
00:01:59I do love that.
00:02:00As you can see, this is a wide open space,
00:02:03and we have put in place all the CDC guidelines.
00:02:06We are socially distanced by the nature of when we are farming,
00:02:09and we've put in masks.
00:02:11From inside the bog, farmers use what's called a boom
00:02:13to corral all the berries bobbing on the surface.
00:02:16One of the things that is surprisingly difficult
00:02:19is pulling the boom.
00:02:20It's heavy.
00:02:21100% of Ocean Spray's cranberries are grown sustainably.
00:02:25But not only is wet harvest environmentally friendly,
00:02:28it's also efficient.
00:02:29Allison's family can harvest up to 10 acres a day.
00:02:32We are harvesting in all different weather.
00:02:35We work every day for six or seven weeks,
00:02:37whatever it takes, eight weeks sometimes.
00:02:39The berry pump right over here,
00:02:41we can come over here and see.
00:02:43And as you can see, we're paddling and gently pushing the cranberries
00:02:47into that pump that's right there.
00:02:49The paddle helps to control the rate of which the cranberries are going into the pump.
00:02:54And the pump gently takes the cranberries up into a truck called the berry washer.
00:02:59The fruit is coming up through here.
00:03:02It builds up and then as it moves along,
00:03:05it goes in here where there's a grate and all the fruit gets washed.
00:03:11And it goes into the back of the truck.
00:03:14Those trucks say goodbye to Gilmore Farm and head out to the receiving station just up the road.
00:03:19Here, trucks coming from Massachusetts and Rhode Island line up by the dozens,
00:03:24waiting their turn to unload.
00:03:26Once in front, they back up and get locked into this giant lift.
00:03:30Hydraulics lift the front end up and all the berries tumble out the back.
00:03:34The berries are cleaned again to get rid of the rest of the leaves and vine bits.
00:03:38Then they're boxed and sent to one of the manufacturing plants.
00:03:41One and a half million barrels will be processed here in just over a month.
00:03:45It'll take the manufacturing plants a year to go through all those berries.
00:03:51Over at the plant in Middleborough, Massachusetts,
00:03:53berries are turned into the products we see on the shelves.
00:03:56We process all the fruit and freeze it.
00:03:58And then when it's frozen,
00:03:59we can slice it to make that optimal sweet dried cranberry.
00:04:02That's Scott, head of engineering here.
00:04:04We're going to go out to our fruit delivery area and see where the fruit comes in.
00:04:07And we kickstart the process.
00:04:09It's going to be very loud, so we'll be wearing ear protection and PPE.
00:04:13To continue operating under COVID-19 restrictions,
00:04:16Ocean Spray had to implement temperature checks,
00:04:18mandatory masks, and social distancing in its factories.
00:04:21After suiting up, we followed Scott into the freezer.
00:04:24We store 3.1 million pounds in our local freezer,
00:04:27which is about two days of production.
00:04:29The berries chosen for craisins, juice, or sauce have to be frozen first.
00:04:33Once it's frozen, it breaks down the cellular structure inside the cranberry
00:04:36and allows the juice to be released and processed.
00:04:41After they're frozen, the berries are spiked to break them up.
00:04:44Frozen fruit comes into the process.
00:04:46Then we slice it, we defrost it, and then we extract the juice from the berries.
00:04:50This is where we're extracting the juice.
00:04:52Once they've got the juice, it's sent here to become a concentrate.
00:04:55That concentrate heads to another facility where the water, juices, and other ingredients
00:04:59are added in to become the now very famous juice.
00:05:02About 4,400 cranberries go into a typical bottle of cranberry juice.
00:05:06But after the juice gets extracted, those leftover berries don't just get thrown away.
00:05:10They become the dried cranberries called craisins.
00:05:13As the fruit enters the dryer, it's a 210-foot dryer that has three stages
00:05:18where we dry the fruit to the customer's justification.
00:05:20Once there's no liquid left, the dried cranberries can get flavorings.
00:05:24Today we're running strawberry on our production line.
00:05:27It smells like strawberry shortcake in the facilities.
00:05:29Now for the sauce, Ocean Spray's first product, introduced back in 1930.
00:05:35This year, Ocean Spray expects Americans to buy nearly 60 million cans of the stuff for the holidays.
00:05:40The berries get ground up into a puree.
00:05:43About 200 berries, along with sweeteners, go into each can of jellied sauce.
00:05:47The process hasn't changed so much.
00:05:49Some of the equipment we use and some of the training that's required the personnel has,
00:05:53but the general concept has not changed in almost 90 years.
00:05:57Once all the products are finished, they're packaged up.
00:05:59And this robot does all the boxing.
00:06:01This is our finished goods cooler where we store a product that's waiting to go out to the customer.
00:06:05We have 3,500 pallet spots in here and a total of 5,500 at the site.
00:06:09So less than three weeks, we turn all the inventory over here in the cooler.
00:06:12Between all the flavors of craisins, juice, and sauce, Ocean Spray has more than 250 SKUs, or product types,
00:06:19on shelves across the globe.
00:06:2150% of it goes to Europe, and then the rest goes to our distribution centers here in the United States.
00:06:27For many, Thanksgiving dinner isn't complete without a side of mac and cheese.
00:06:32Here's how a century-old Vermont creamery makes 130 million pounds of cheese each year.
00:06:38In the tiny town of Cabot, Vermont, this creamery has been churning out dairy products for 100 years.
00:06:46Their claim to fame?
00:06:48The Vermont Cheddar.
00:06:50Cabot Creamery makes about 130 million pounds of the stuff each year,
00:06:55and it ends up on shelves across the U.S.
00:06:58Their extra-sharp cheddar nabbed first place in the 2019 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest,
00:07:04while their mild and medium cheddars got first in the 2018 World Championship for Cheese.
00:07:10Yep, such a competition exists, and I want to be a judge.
00:07:14So how does Cabot Creamery make the world's tastiest cheddar cheese?
00:07:18Well, it all started here in Vermont, on a family farm.
00:07:22In 1919, 94 farmers in Cabot, hoping to better market their dairy products, formed a cooperative.
00:07:29This co-op meant the farmers not only owned the Cabot brand, but saw 100% of the profits.
00:07:36Fast forward a century, and the creamery still runs on this model.
00:07:39But today, more than 800 family farms across New England own Cabot.
00:07:44Farms just like this one.
00:07:46This is Fairmont in East Montpellier, Vermont.
00:07:49My name's Clara, and I'm a third-generation dairy farmer here at Fairmont.
00:07:54My husband tells me that he's eaten more cheese since he's met me than he ever did in his life before.
00:08:00As part of the Cabot Cooperative, Clara's family knows exactly where their milk is going,
00:08:05and even what products it'll become.
00:08:07Our milk mostly becomes hard cheeses and butter.
00:08:10Cabot deals with making, marketing, and selling the cheese,
00:08:13so the farmers can focus on what they do best — milking cows.
00:08:18Clara's family has almost 1,500 Holstein cows at their two farms — one here in East Montpellier,
00:08:24and one in Crasbury, Vermont.
00:08:26We ship about 5 million gallons of milk a year.
00:08:30Fairmont milks their cows using a milking machine, attached to the udders by a farmhand.
00:08:35The cows are being really well cared for and loved by family farmers, and that's really special.
00:08:41But some of Cabot's newest farm facilities are using robotic milkers to speed up the process.
00:08:47Once the milk is collected, it's held in tanks until a Cabot truck arrives.
00:08:52These trucks can come up to three times a day to load up the supply of fresh milk and transport it to the Cabot plant.
00:08:59Here it will become either butter, cottage cheese, sour cream, yogurt, or of course, cheese.
00:09:05Cheddar cheese.
00:09:07It takes Cabot about 10 gallons of milk to make just one pound of cheese.
00:09:13To make Cabot's signature cheddar, first the milk is pasteurized.
00:09:16The milk is then poured into a huge vat, where a starter culture of bacteria and the special enzyme called rennet are added in.
00:09:24This combo jump-starts the process of curdling the milk into cheese.
00:09:29And as the cheese is formed, big steel wires break it down into small curds and a liquid known as whey.
00:09:36Once the cheese curds are cooked through, the whey and the curds head to the finishing table.
00:09:41Here, the whey is drained out.
00:09:43Salt is added in to cut some of that acidity.
00:09:48This is also the point where Cabot can add in herbs and other ingredients to make their specialty flavors,
00:09:53like super spicy habanero and the cheese for us weaker heat seekers, the pepper jack.
00:09:58After that, everything's mixed together.
00:10:01Next, the cheese curds are squeezed together to form massive 40- or 60-pound blocks.
00:10:06Those blocks are then sent to the aging room, where they're left in a temperature-controlled space to mature.
00:10:12These folks are the cheese graters.
00:10:15The people responsible for making sure Cabot's cheese is aging up to their world's best standard.
00:10:21On average in our inventory, we have close to 70 million pounds of cheese that we repeatedly will sample on an everyday basis.
00:10:30Some days we're evaluating up to 150 samples or vats a day.
00:10:36When the cheese finally makes it to the aging room, the cheese graters take a plug, or a sample, out of each block.
00:10:42Good flavor. It's a good Monterey Jack. A little salty.
00:10:55Monterey Jack is typically a short-aged cheese. Younger cheese. It's got moisture added to it.
00:11:01It makes a unique profile.
00:11:03As the cheddar gets older, the flavors that develop become more intense.
00:11:07Every batch tastes a little bit different.
00:11:10A thousand different farms, I mean, the mix is always going to be a little bit different.
00:11:13Cheese is a living organism.
00:11:15Graters like Gina and Ted determine when a cheese block is ready to be cut.
00:11:19The blocks head back to the factory for the finishing touches.
00:11:22An industrial slicer breaks those puppies down to a more edible 8-ounce block.
00:11:27Almost every Thanksgiving dessert needs a little vanilla, and it's one of the world's most expensive spices.
00:11:37Here's how farmers in Madagascar produce 80% of the world's supply.
00:11:42Here, farmers have to pollinate 40 million orchids that only bloom for one day a year.
00:11:59Only then will a vanilla bean or pod grow.
00:12:03Inside are the seeds and oils used in popular desserts.
00:12:07But Madagascar is still one of the poorest countries in the world.
00:12:13Volatility of the vanilla prices, this bust and boom, creates such a toxic environment there.
00:12:22Farmers can earn more when the price of vanilla is high.
00:12:25But rampant inflation often follows.
00:12:28And the big bucks attract thieves, who attack farmers and steal crops.
00:12:33Today, farmers arm themselves to defend their vanilla.
00:12:48Farmers can plunge into extreme poverty when prices are low.
00:12:54The government has tried to stabilize the price, but it's backfired.
00:12:58And now global customers are turning to other countries for cheaper vanilla.
00:13:04As locals fight to protect Madagascar's green gold,
00:13:07they worry how much more they, the land, and this crop can take.
00:13:11Raza Finsalama grew up on a vanilla farm.
00:13:18And seven years ago, he bought this hectare of land for himself.
00:13:24Vanilla is an orchid that grows on a vine.
00:13:26And it grows best in this rainforest environment, where there's plenty of rain and sunlight.
00:13:29Raza Finsalama grew up on a vanilla farm.
00:13:31And seven years ago, he bought this hectare of land for himself.
00:13:36Vanilla is an orchid that grows on a vine.
00:13:39And it grows best in this rainforest environment, where there's plenty of rain and sunlight.
00:13:54But vanilla isn't native to Madagascar.
00:13:58It's actually from 10,000 miles away, in Central and South America.
00:14:03Indigenous groups like the Totonacs, and later the Aztecs,
00:14:06cultivated native vanilla for centuries, thanks to this insect.
00:14:11Orchid bees are needed to pollinate a vanilla's flower,
00:14:14allowing a fruit, or that pod, to grow.
00:14:17After Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztecs, he brought vanilla back to Spain in the 1520s.
00:14:24It became popular across Europe, in desserts like ice cream, crème brûlée, and sweetmeats,
00:14:30which Queen Elizabeth I loved.
00:14:32Except the Spanish still controlled the trade.
00:14:35So, hoping to get in on the market, other European countries tried cultivating vanilla on their own.
00:14:41But, they didn't have that bee.
00:14:44So, their vanilla vines wouldn't produce any fruit.
00:14:47Then in 1841, on the French-controlled island of Reunion, a 12-year-old boy figured out an answer.
00:14:53Edmund Albius discovered that the orchid could pollinate itself,
00:14:57if he moved aside the membrane separating the male and female parts.
00:15:01Albius was born into slavery, but even after he was freed in 1848,
00:15:05he never made money off his discovery, and died in poverty 32 years later.
00:15:11France took Albius' work and started growing vanilla on the French-ruled island right next door, Madagascar.
00:15:18It thrived here because the growing conditions were perfect.
00:15:21Today, in towns like Razafin Salamas, almost everyone works in the vanilla industry.
00:15:27And they still hand-pollinate every orchid, just like Albius did nearly 200 years ago.
00:15:33Each flower blooms for just one day a year.
00:15:36My garden called Razafin Salama, and she gothaltous flowers for a year.
00:15:56Each flower blooms for just one day a year.
00:16:00Raza fin salama works alone and can pollinate up to 500 orchids a day.
00:16:07It takes about nine months for a pod to grow.
00:16:12The price of this vanilla bean has skyrocketed in recent years due to rising demand and the
00:16:16destruction of crops by cyclones.
00:16:19In 2018, vanilla hit a high of nearly $600 per kilo, more than the value of silver.
00:16:27It's since dropped to $250 a kilo, but that's still a lot.
00:16:31And those prices are really attractive to thieves.
00:16:44So many farmers in the region are arming themselves and patrolling their fields at night, when thieves
00:16:52usually strike.
00:16:57Steve stole 20 kilograms of Farmer Berlin Ranaree's harvest, leaving his vines bare.
00:17:04Here, here.
00:17:05Here, here.
00:17:06Here, here.
00:17:07Here, here.
00:17:08Here, here.
00:17:09Here, here.
00:17:10Here, here.
00:17:11Here, here.
00:17:12Here.
00:17:13Here.
00:17:14Here.
00:17:15Here.
00:17:16Here.
00:17:17Here.
00:17:18Here.
00:17:19Here.
00:17:20Here.
00:17:21Here.
00:17:22Here.
00:17:23Here.
00:17:24Here here.
00:17:25Here.
00:17:26In 2018, officials estimated 10% of the year's harvest was lost to theft.
00:17:41He often sleeps out here overnight.
00:17:56And because farmers only get one vanilla harvest annually…
00:18:12Some of the thieves are actually children, driven to steal because of poverty.
00:18:18They were held in overcrowded and unhygienic prisons in the northeast of the country for years without trial.
00:18:26Farmers have started branding their vanilla beans with identifying codes, making the crops easier to track if they do get stolen.
00:18:33Another protective measure? Some farmers pick their beans before they're completely ripe, to beat thieves to harvest.
00:18:40And so the quality goes down a lot.
00:18:43This year, Razafin Salama was able to wait until his beans were completely mature.
00:18:47Farmers have to move quickly, because the pods start fermenting immediately once they're picked.
00:18:57They pack the vanilla pods in 40-pound bags…
00:19:02…and haul the loads for miles along dirt roads to the market.
00:19:08Traditionally, middlemen, called commissionnaires, bought these beans in their raw green state.
00:19:29And they held a lot of negotiating power over the farmers, since the beans boiled quickly.
00:19:37The middlemen are definitely making a lot more money.
00:19:40They can kind of tell people whatever price they want.
00:19:44So some years, farmers walk away happy.
00:19:47In other years, they can barely make ends meet.
00:19:49I have heard farmers say things like, you have to have courage to plant vanilla, because it may not be worth it at the end.
00:19:57You may not get anything.
00:19:59Nowadays, Razafin Salama sells his pods directly to a cooperative, called Saha Nala.
00:20:04I don't know why.
00:20:06I don't know why.
00:20:08I don't know why.
00:20:11Saha Nala representatives check the bean quality and the brand on the bean.
00:20:15And pay the farmers directly in cash, cutting out the middleman and promising a consistent price.
00:20:22Today, Razafin Salama earns about $17 for a kilo of raw green vanilla.
00:20:36Saha Nala takes the beans to one of its processing facilities, employing thousands of workers across Madagascar.
00:20:42But even these large operations still have to protect against thieves.
00:20:48The facility has electric fences, surveillance cameras, and private security patrolling at night.
00:21:06Anisani Antum Matungan's an Efebita rate on no raise to my yarovana lava near me as our business may fall around.
00:21:23But it'll still be another three months of painstaking work before the vanilla is export ready.
00:21:28First, workers have to sort the beans by quality and size.
00:21:39Next, they wash each bean to remove any impurities.
00:21:49Then the beans get dunked in hot water to release the compound vanillin.
00:21:54That's what creates the distinct vanilla flavor.
00:21:58The beans need less than a minute, depending on how ripe they are.
00:22:13The beans need less than a minute, depending on how ripe they are.
00:22:15They have to run the bean baskets so they don't lose the heat from cooking.
00:22:21Workers move the cooked beans to boxes where they'll sit for 48 hours.
00:22:31When they take the beans out, they'll be brown.
00:22:34They have to run the bean baskets so they don't lose the heat from cooking.
00:22:39Workers move the cooked beans to boxes where they'll sit for 48 hours.
00:22:45When they take the beans out, they'll be brown.
00:22:47When they turn into vanilla, they'll be brown.
00:22:54So they palm oil.
00:22:56When these beans are made, they'll have to taste the vanilla.
00:23:01We'll have to get the vanilla.
00:23:02When the vanilla sticks are ready for the humididum.
00:23:04There, the beans will stay for 15 to 30 days, depending on the moisture inside.
00:23:34I'll kill the vanilla.
00:23:41I'll kill the vanilla.
00:23:51I'll kill the vanilla.
00:24:03In the packaging room, they massage the beans to release the oils and the vanilla fragrance.
00:24:13Careful not to damage the beans, they group the pods in bunches.
00:24:17Then they check that there are no stray metals, like nails, hidden inside.
00:24:23Workers then weigh the boxes.
00:24:27And package them for shipping.
00:24:33It's extravagant, because the demand is very big for all the pâtisseries in the United States.
00:24:39Saha Nala's vanilla beans end up with American-based food processor Archer Daniels Midland.
00:24:45The fact that we are associated with Archer Daniels Midland, we've seen our production increase.
00:24:56Exporters like Saha Nala earn the biggest bucks.
00:24:59This cooperative has a turnover of $40 million annually.
00:25:03That's because cured beans are worth a lot more.
00:25:06Today, Saha Nala earns $250 per kilo for its cured vanilla, a 1,300% increase from what farmer Razafin Salama made selling his raw beans.
00:25:17The bigger problem is the volatility of the price.
00:25:20In those low-price years, farmers live in extreme poverty.
00:25:35Like 81% of the country, many earn just $2 a day.
00:25:39So many farmers grow other crops, like vegetables and peanuts, to supplement their incomes.
00:25:50During years of high prices, farmers, middlemen, and exporters would make more.
00:26:09But this also drives up inflation, making everything more expensive.
00:26:14In the ideal world, vanilla would consistently get a good price.
00:26:20To balance out the ever-changing price, in 2020, Madagascar's government introduced a minimum-based price.
00:26:27Today, it's set at $250 a kilo for the exporter.
00:26:31They want to protect against this crazy up and down, right?
00:26:34But it hasn't gone to plan.
00:26:37Unfortunately, it appears that most people are not going along with paying that minimum price.
00:26:47Global companies are turning to other countries that sell at cheaper prices.
00:26:51Or they're buying synthetic vanilla.
00:26:54A lot of this depends so much on the government of Madagascar.
00:26:58And whether they will change tactics and go back to allowing their price to more accurately reflect the global price.
00:27:10Farmers are betting on cooperatives like Sahanala to alleviate the need the government can't fill.
00:27:16Sahanala can guarantee that its farmers make $17 a kilo.
00:27:20At least $2,600 a year.
00:27:23But as they face theft, an unreliable government, and shifting demand, farmers at the center of the industry are unsure of what's next.
00:27:40The demand for vanilla is continuously increasing.
00:27:44And so if Madagascar could find some stability, and if these farmers could find some stability,
00:27:51that there's no reason for the outlook to not be really, really good for vanilla in Madagascar.
00:27:58The undisputed star of this holiday meal is the Thanksgiving turkey.
00:28:02Here's how one farm takes it from pasture to plate.
00:28:05This is Hell Week at Gunthorpe Farms in Indiana.
00:28:11They'll harvest a thousand turkeys in three days.
00:28:15It's a fraction of the estimated 40 million birds that will be slaughtered across the U.S. for just one meal.
00:28:21Thanksgiving.
00:28:23Americans love cheap turkey.
00:28:26But not all turkeys are created equal.
00:28:28So we went to Indiana to understand the true cost of Thanksgiving turkeys.
00:28:35Greg's family has been raising animals this way for four generations.
00:28:41Yeah, they get rained on.
00:28:43Occasionally they even get snowed on.
00:28:45But they get to live the life of a turkey.
00:28:48They're raised on grain that's not genetically modified.
00:28:51And Greg never gives them antibiotics.
00:28:53The typical turkey is raised in a barn with several other thousand turkeys.
00:29:01Ours, you know, get to go out, scratch in the ground, chase after some bugs, get to actually see the sun, breathe fresh air their whole life.
00:29:08Catching this many birds the week before Thanksgiving takes teamwork and patience.
00:29:17Turkeys start out as a not very intelligent bird, but they got a lot going on when they get to this age.
00:29:23They got a personality.
00:29:26The next stop is the processing plant where they'll spend the night.
00:29:30But we'll catch up with them later, after Greg gives us a tour of the farm.
00:29:38The animals that we consume ought to eat their green leafy vegetables.
00:29:42They ought to get some exercise and they ought to get some sunlight.
00:29:46There's a handful of other farms that are raising pastured turkeys, but it's a really, really small percentage of the marketplace.
00:29:53All kinds of farms in America have been decreasing for decades.
00:29:59At the same time, the farms that have survived have gotten bigger and bigger.
00:30:04Greg's turkeys cost up to three times as much as mass-produced turkeys in the supermarket.
00:30:10The intensive work it takes to raise his birds means they'll sell for up to $6 a pound.
00:30:16Our biggest cost is that we just have more labor in taking care of birds.
00:30:21Let's get back to those turkeys we left at the processing plant.
00:30:26It takes about 10 people working three long days to kill and package all of these birds in time for Thanksgiving.
00:30:33Workers hang the birds upside down by their feet and make sure the turkeys won't feel what comes next.
00:30:40We stun our turkeys with electricity.
00:30:42I think it's a really good and humane way to slaughter turkeys at a small scale.
00:30:49Greg's processing plant is audited and certified annually to prove his poultry is humanely raised and slaughtered.
00:30:56Next, Greg tosses the dead turkeys into the plucker, a machine that spins the birds to remove their feathers.
00:31:05Then, workers remove their organs.
00:31:07At the end of the line, Greg's son Evan dumps them into ice baths.
00:31:10We want them to chill as rapid as possible.
00:31:12These all have to last all the way into Thanksgiving.
00:31:15So the quicker that we can get them to chill, the better the shelf life is going to be on them.
00:31:19But keeping the business going just keeps getting tougher.
00:31:23Over the past few years, turkey has grown to be about 15% of Greg's business.
00:31:29That's because for the first time in two decades, the farm is missing what used to be its biggest seller.
00:31:36This was our pastured chicken operation last year.
00:31:41It was about 250 chickens in each one of those.
00:31:44We'd have 20,000 to 30,000 chickens on the farm at any time and would process about 3,000 of them a week.
00:31:51These now-empty fields used to bring in half of the farm's revenue.
00:31:55But in 2020, Greg abandoned his chicken business.
00:31:58An awful lot of our business was focused on raising pastured chicken for 20 years.
00:32:04It was probably the most difficult business decision that I've ever made.
00:32:08His chickens cost nearly twice as much as the cheap poultry that American consumers have come to expect.
00:32:14Wholesale buyers picked cheaper, mass-produced chickens over his.
00:32:18I'm extremely worried that the turkeys are going to go the same route as chicken.
00:32:26Last Thanksgiving, Greg lost a longtime retail turkey buyer.
00:32:30He says the order was canceled at the last minute.
00:32:33If you lose a big wholesale buyer, it can be devastating on a business like ours.
00:32:39Greg had to put hundreds of unsold Thanksgiving turkeys in the freezer.
00:32:44He later cut them up to sell his parts instead, but it wasn't as profitable.
00:32:49We get dropped on a regular basis by wholesalers, and it's almost exclusively overpriced.
00:32:57In some cases, we're able to differentiate our birds, and in some cases, we're just not.
00:33:03Greg should have an advantage with customers who care about where their meat comes from.
00:33:07But corporate marketers are doing their best to tap into those consumers, even if it's just about creative labeling.
00:33:14For example, these three turkeys look like they're from different brands, right?
00:33:19Well, Honeysuckle White, Shadybrook Farms, and Honest Turkey are all Cargill brands.
00:33:25That's a food conglomerate that is one of the 10 largest private companies in the world.
00:33:30At the end of the day, there's really this illusion of choice in the grocery store.
00:33:34We see a lot of deceptive marketing claims being made by these big companies.
00:33:38Advocacy groups filed a deceptive advertising complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Cargill in 2020.
00:33:45Cargill told Insider it believes the claim lacks merit and that its turkey production is in line with USDA standards.
00:33:52The FTC said it can't disclose the status of the complaint.
00:33:56Cargill says their turkeys are raised by independent family farmers.
00:34:00This is how it works.
00:34:01Large companies like Cargill or Purdue Farms will often contract smaller farms to produce their chicken and turkey.
00:34:08But some small farmers say they lost their independence once they were contracted with companies.
00:34:13Craig Watts was one of them.
00:34:15He raised chickens on contract for Purdue Farms for more than 20 years.
00:34:19The company owns the birds, the company owns the feed.
00:34:22He says Purdue controlled how many chickens he raised and how he raised them.
00:34:27I definitely would have not had 30,000 birds crammed in a 20,000 square foot facility.
00:34:33In 2012, Craig says he filmed Purdue employees on his farm throwing chicks to the ground and kicking birds.
00:34:40He ended his contract with Purdue in 2016.
00:34:44They give you this image of ma and pa kettle and the pitchfork and the nice white picket fence and the red barn and the pretty white chicken.
00:34:51When in reality, the conditions that these animals are raising are miserable.
00:34:55In a statement to Insider, Purdue said it was not familiar with Craig's videos and that they don't reflect its current practices.
00:35:02The company also said it announced commitments to animal care, including focuses on farmer relationships and transparency.
00:35:10Purdue connected us with a current contract farmer, Steven Brake.
00:35:14We have a whole lot of control of what we do.
00:35:17We're not sitting here at the mercy of Purdue.
00:35:20Steven confirmed that Purdue owns the chickens he raises and manages their feed.
00:35:25Back at Gunthorpe Farms, Greg's turkeys are chilled and ready to be bagged.
00:35:34Despite all the extra costs, Greg doesn't want to give up his farming methods, even if it makes it harder for him to stay in the business.
00:35:43In a week, customers will pick up their turkeys from Greg in Chicago or directly from the farm in rural Indiana.
00:35:49And this time around, he plans to sell all of his turkeys.
00:35:53It's very rewarding to know that we're raising turkeys for people that care about how their food is raised, how it's processed, and how it gets to them.
00:36:03Nearly half of U.S. households serve apple pie at Thanksgiving, and there's a newer option in the mix.
00:36:10Here's how scientists in Washington State disrupted the apple industry.
00:36:14Scientists at Washington State University have been on a quest to breed the perfect apple for more than 20 years.
00:36:22And they think they finally got it.
00:36:25The Cosmic Crisp hit the market on December 1, 2019.
00:36:29It was the largest launch of an apple in American history, coming after a half a billion dollars in investment,
00:36:3510 million dollars in marketing, and two decades of breeding and testing.
00:36:41We take a look at what it took to engineer what's been called the perfect apple,
00:36:46and why some hope it'll save the Washington State apple industry.
00:36:52In the late 90s, Washington State's apple industry was on the brink of collapse.
00:36:57That's because more than 100,000 acres of trees grown were for an apple that was losing its popularity.
00:37:04The red delicious.
00:37:06Once a star of the supermarket, the apple is now criticized for its bland taste and mealy texture.
00:37:13By the end of the decade, farmers lost about $760 million in three years.
00:37:20That's when Bruce Barrett stepped in.
00:37:23I ate an apple every day.
00:37:24And began breeding what would become the Cosmic Crisp.
00:37:28The goal was to have a fruit that was just as beautiful as the red delicious,
00:37:32but also had a sweet taste and a nice crunch.
00:37:35We had all our eggs are in one basket.
00:37:39Red delicious.
00:37:40That's not good economics.
00:37:41It's just not good.
00:37:42If we grow more and more of something that people like less and less,
00:37:44that's not a good business model either.
00:37:46Since then, growers have increased production of other varieties,
00:37:50but the red delicious still counts for almost a third of apple tree acreage in the state today.
00:37:56To successfully take its place, the Cosmic Crisp needed to last at least 12 months,
00:38:01about six months longer than the red delicious.
00:38:04That's because the apple industry's Super Bowl is the fall season,
00:38:08when farmers harvest nearly all the apples consumed through the rest of the year.
00:38:13So the goal is to find an apple that tastes as good in March as it does in October.
00:38:18Which is why Barrett chose the Honey Crisp and the Enterprise as the Cosmic Crisp's parents,
00:38:24for their crispness and storage qualities respectively.
00:38:28But even then, it took thousands of trials and errors.
00:38:32Take a bite.
00:38:35Soft. Terrible.
00:38:38Ten thousand seeds, and those seeds grew into trees.
00:38:42And we looked through ten thousand of them, and a couple showed promise.
00:38:46And the one that showed the most promise was Cosmic Crisp.
00:38:50In the first few years of breeding, the Cosmic Crisp seeds grew into seedlings.
00:38:55By year four, the seedlings turned into trees and produced their first apple fruits.
00:39:01And by 2008, though the Cosmic Crisp didn't even have a name, it had promising characteristics.
00:39:08The selection that is now named Cosmic Crisp was one of, I think, ten selections.
00:39:13So that meant that they were just moving into a point where we would get bulk volumes of fruit
00:39:19that would enable us to do some of that really in-depth evaluation of the fruit.
00:39:23In the next eleven years, that in-depth evaluation consisted of tons of tests,
00:39:29evaluating the Cosmic Crisp size, shape, color, crunchiness, juiciness, and tartness.
00:39:36The WSU team test the ripeness of the apple using iodine to determine the best time to harvest.
00:39:43What it does is that iodine, then it binds to the starch that's in the fruit.
00:39:48As the fruit ripens, that starch turns to sugar.
00:39:53And so when you have stained it with iodine and it's fully purple or black,
00:39:59that's showing that it's really immature. It's very starchy.
00:40:03The lighter the flesh, the sweeter the apple.
00:40:08Mmm.
00:40:12See that juice, that juice inside makes it a pleasant thing to eat.
00:40:17I can eat this all day.
00:40:20There you go.
00:40:21That's how you know.
00:40:23But with hundreds of consumer favorites already on the market,
00:40:27how can a new apple stand a chance?
00:40:30It takes a big budget, takes a big industry, and it takes a big product.
00:40:34All those things have to come together.
00:40:36The Cosmic Crisp has it all.
00:40:38Named for its galactic-looking skin, experts expect the apple to take over the industry.
00:40:44By the end of 2019, Washington farmers had grown 12,000 acres of Cosmic Crisp trees,
00:40:51which falls in the middle of apple production for the state.
00:40:54And to catch up with its competitors, $10.5 million went into just marketing the apple.
00:41:01It even has its own commercial.
00:41:03The variety will only be available to state-based growers for the first 10 years.
00:41:10The growers, they deserve that advantage.
00:41:12They contributed to their research project, and so they have a 10-year head start.
00:41:16The Cosmic Crisp sells for about $3 to $5 a pound as a premium apple variety,
00:41:22which is more than twice the price of standard varieties like the Gala.
00:41:26Still, the apple's creators are confident the Cosmic Crisp is up for the challenge.
00:41:32We want people to really enjoy apples, and we felt to have that happen, we had to give them better apples.
00:41:37We had to rise above Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Macintosh.
00:41:41We had to have an apple that was a much better eating experience.
00:41:44And more than two decades later, it worked.
00:41:47In September of 2020, the Cosmic Crisp won the Good Housekeeping Institute's Healthy Snack of the Year Award.
00:41:57Between mashed potatoes, flaky pie crusts, and dinner rolls,
00:42:01Americans can eat more than a stick of butter per person at a typical Thanksgiving dinner.
00:42:07But not all butter is equal.
00:42:09We visited Brittany, France to see how some of the best butter in the world is made.
00:42:14In February, we met with Genevieve Bourdieu, son and grandson of butter and cheese makers,
00:42:23who brought back to France the 19th century technique of malaxage,
00:42:27using this big wooden wheel to knead the butter.
00:42:29To Genevieve, the malaxage is a more romantic way to make butter.
00:42:33I'm always part of the principle that what was the most important was the emotions.
00:42:39After, we'll try to see how we can do with emotions.
00:42:44But if we do a marketing product, it doesn't interest me.
00:42:51It doesn't interest me.
00:42:52It doesn't interest me to produce 10 million tons of butter.
00:42:55It's not my job.
00:42:56I'm a very small man and I do small things.
00:43:00The malaxage is really what makes Bourdieu butter unique.
00:43:04These are 50 kiloblocks of butter extracted from milk
00:43:07and are pretty standard in the butter making industry, even for the most artisanal.
00:43:11But while everyone else will use huge centrifuges to filter out the last remaining drops of buttermilk,
00:43:17butter at the Bourdieu workshop is flattened by a wooden wheel and worked by hand by Eric.
00:43:22We're going to show you a complete malaxage.
00:43:29We're going to cut these cubes of butter and we're going to transform them.
00:43:34Let's do it.
00:43:35Little by little, the malaxage is going to give butter a new life.
00:43:41Dating back to the late 19th century, this tool was first used to rework different butters.
00:43:47At Bourdieu, it also helps give butter the desired texture.
00:43:53This is the most bad moment of the year for the malaxage
00:43:57because the texture of the beurre is only the result of what animals eat.
00:44:04In winter, animals eat the flour, which will give white, friable,
00:44:09cassant, sans great odor.
00:44:15You can see the vis here.
00:44:17It is slightly humid, but it is not yet completely tremped.
00:44:23We are on the beurre secs.
00:44:25Little by little, the beurrier is trying to make things more comfortable to work.
00:44:32And the bois, it helps you?
00:44:34The wood or the metal, it's a mechanical gesture.
00:44:38It doesn't matter.
00:44:39But it's more pleasant, it's more beautiful.
00:44:42It's important that it's beautiful in life.
00:44:44Yes, it's true.
00:44:47It's very hard what he does here.
00:44:49It's very hard what he does here.
00:44:51It's the most difficult moment.
00:44:53And there he becomes a beurre remarquable.
00:44:55And frankly, it was not easy.
00:44:57You're just going to roll it like this.
00:44:59You're going to roll it like this.
00:45:00You're going to let it turn around, and then you're going to re-franquish.
00:45:05There's no way to do this.
00:45:08Come here.
00:45:09You're going to roll.
00:45:10Yeah.
00:45:11Wow, it's too heavy.
00:45:13Again?
00:45:14It's very heavy.
00:45:16The wood is going like this.
00:45:18Oh man, this is going super fast.
00:45:20It's like that!
00:45:21Yeah.
00:45:22Yeah.
00:45:23How do you know?
00:45:25I don't know.
00:45:27You're going to put it in there.
00:45:31You're going to put it in there.
00:45:33Okay.
00:45:35Where?
00:45:37You're going to put it in there.
00:45:39You're going to leave your hand like this.
00:45:41Ah, okay.
00:45:43It's more small.
00:45:45Here?
00:45:47When you see him doing that, it's...
00:45:55It almost has like an harmony.
00:45:57It's not easy.
00:45:59Monsieur Baudet said this is 50 kilos of butter.
00:46:01So try and lift a bit of it.
00:46:03It's going to be like, what?
00:46:0510 kilos just in one go.
00:46:09For how long do you have to learn to put the pot like this?
00:46:13To learn about this job, 3 years.
00:46:153 years?
00:46:16You know why?
00:46:18No, why?
00:46:19Because the sun and the rain don't fall in the same way every year.
00:46:22And it's the sun and the rain that will give to the land and the earth a particular taste
00:46:28that they have to aim and that the seasons will put in music.
00:46:34The spring, the summer, the autumn, the summer...
00:46:37And that for learning to discover the butter,
00:46:40which is only the result of the food of animals, it takes 3 years.
00:46:46Eric then salts the butter using fine salt.
00:46:49This step is crucial to make sure the butter finally rejects all the leftover water it has in it.
00:46:54Okay.
00:46:55I don't know.
00:46:56I don't know.
00:46:57I don't know.
00:46:58I don't know.
00:46:59I don't know.
00:47:00I don't know.
00:47:01I don't know.
00:47:02It's actually, I can see that it's getting wetter and wetter.
00:47:05It's picking up more water.
00:47:06You hear the noise?
00:47:07I don't know.
00:47:08I don't know.
00:47:09I don't know.
00:47:10I don't know.
00:47:11I don't know.
00:47:12I don't know.
00:47:13I don't know.
00:47:14I don't know.
00:47:15I don't know.
00:47:16I don't know.
00:47:17I don't know.
00:47:18I don't know.
00:47:19I don't know.
00:47:20I don't know.
00:47:21I don't know.
00:47:22The dry material.
00:47:24In the dry material, there is the grass.
00:47:26And in the grass, there is the taste.
00:47:28Oh, wow.
00:47:29Actually, I can see that it's getting wetter and wetter.
00:47:33It's picking up more water.
00:47:35Do you hear the noise?
00:47:38When my butter cries, it's that it's crying.
00:47:42When my butter cries, it's that it's crying.
00:47:46According to Genève, they work with old techniques,
00:47:49but they're not trying to recreate an old recipe.
00:47:52We work with the methods of here, but we use a living lait of today.
00:47:59So the butter that I make, the purpose of my butter is not to find the butter of 1857.
00:48:05What does Eric do?
00:48:07It's something that you don't exist anymore.
00:48:11What you see here, are the gestes of the 19th century with a butter of 2020.
00:48:16And it's how to restate and perpetuate the quality of our old people,
00:48:23but in living in the world of today.
00:48:25So, I'm going to take a small piece.
00:48:30Big one? Oh, no.
00:48:31No, no, no, like this.
00:48:33OK.
00:48:34Voilà .
00:48:35It's salt, yeah.
00:48:36It's very salt.
00:48:37It's softer than the butter I used to.
00:48:39It's softer than the butter I used to.
00:48:46It's much sweeter than this one.
00:49:02The butter of the butter is not to disappear, but its intensity diminue.
00:49:08And, by the way, the taste of the cream is more important.
00:49:12The butter of the butter is not to eat out of the barrack or the malaxer plateau.
00:49:18It must be eaten three, four, five days after.
00:49:21Because the balance, the harmony of the taste is in place.
00:49:26The butter of the butter, the stris that we see in the butter,
00:49:33are the proof that this butter has been made for us.
00:49:37It's the reproduction of the cannelé vis.
00:49:41And that's the irrefutable proof.
00:49:44Because you are the only one to eat it.
00:49:50Bordier also makes flavored butters,
00:49:52including chili butter, buckwheat butter, vanilla butter and more.
00:49:56You also make the butter with the dal?
00:49:59Yes.
00:50:00It was my first butter composed in 1985.
00:50:05C'est un beurre un peu particulier qui est intéressant
00:50:09parce qu'il est à la fois très coloré
00:50:12et en même temps extrêmement parfumé.
00:50:16Je vous laisse goûter.
00:50:17Vous fermez les yeux.
00:50:18Fermez les yeux.
00:50:19Voilà .
00:50:20Fermez les yeux.
00:50:22Vous n'avez pas de problème.
00:50:24Fermez les yeux.
00:50:26Vous n'avez pas les pieds mouillés.
00:50:29Parce que ça arrive souvent avec le beurre aux algues
00:50:31qu'on ait les pieds mouillés.
00:50:33Vous allez voir ?
00:50:35Oui.
00:50:36C'est très frais.
00:50:37C'est très frais.
00:50:38C'est très frais.
00:50:39Oui.
00:50:40C'est frais.
00:50:41C'est frais.
00:50:42C'est frais.
00:50:43Mais ce n'est pas de peau.
00:50:44C'est bon et du tout.
00:50:45C'est très bon et du tout.
00:50:46Il te rappelle vraiment du ventre.
00:50:48C'est frais.
00:50:49Quand vous vous serez à la piscine et vous l'entendez.
00:50:51Attention.
00:50:52Oula !
00:50:53Il y a des mouettes.
00:50:55Ah ok.
00:50:56Ça c'est une vraie identité.
00:50:57Comme le beurre aux sarrasins.
00:50:58Il faut que ce soit comme ça.
00:50:59Et puis si je vais au Génie,
00:51:00je vais au Génie.
00:51:01C'est une vraie identité.
00:51:02Ça c'est une vraie identité.
00:51:03Comme le beurre aux sarrasins.
00:51:04Et puis si je vais au Japon, c'est comme ça que j'ai découvert le Yuzu.
00:51:28Si je vais ailleurs, je ne sais pas.
00:51:30Peut-être qu'un jour, si je vais sur Mars, je ferai un beurre tout vert.
00:51:34Je ne sais pas.
00:51:35Ah, non.
00:51:36Je voudrais que ça le taste.
00:51:42Après être prêt,
00:51:43chaque stack de la piscine de la piscine de la piscine est ensuite placée dans ce cutter,
00:51:47une autre machine signature de Bourdieu.
00:51:51Il était très important qu'au moment de faire les modèles,
00:51:57nous n'ayons pas de machine qui soit violente, mais qui soit très douce.
00:52:02Or, ce petit poussoir, les modes de beurre qui viennent d'être faites vont dans le poussoir
00:52:08et tout simplement par un effet de vérin sont poussés ici.
00:52:13Et grâce à cet appareil qui date du 19ème, par l'écartement de chaque corde de guitare,
00:52:20nous avons le grammage désiré.
00:52:22Il y a toujours de l'eau.
00:52:24Il y a toujours de l'eau.
00:52:25Donc ça veut dire qu'il y a toujours de l'eau qui vient de l'eau.
00:52:28Ma méthode traditionnelle, il y a toujours de l'eau.
00:52:31Nous ne rajoutons pas d'eau.
00:52:33Au contraire, on en enlève.
00:52:35Cette machine, est-ce que vous êtes le seul à l'avoir ?
00:52:39Ah oui, pour le coup, oui.
00:52:41Et on l'a encore utilisée, cette machine-là , il y a 250 ans.
00:52:46Vous voulez que je vous montre où ?
00:52:48Pendant la Révolution française.
00:52:52On appelle ça une Marie-Antoinette.
00:52:54Je vais vous interpréter une oeuvre du 18ème pour harpe et beurre.
00:53:18Oh non !
00:53:24Ils ont tant qu'un kilo de bain, hein ?
00:53:30Ah, regarde !
00:53:31Oh non !
00:53:34L'unique qu'il reste, c'est la forme.
00:53:36Et comme le reste, il est allé par la main.
00:53:39Chaque forme et taille est custom.
00:53:41Certains chefs peuvent acheter ces formes de taille,
00:53:44d'autres peuvent acheter l'eau,
00:53:46et les seules seules.
00:53:48Ce sont des modèles uniques.
00:53:49Il n'y a pas de machine ici.
00:53:51Nous sommes des êtres humains.
00:53:53Vous voyez, avec le petit pompon.
00:53:55C'est extrêmement rare.
00:53:56Il est tout seul à le faire.
00:53:57Et là , pareil, vous voyez, c'est des modèles rares.
00:53:59Il y a plusieurs tailles.
00:54:01Ça ressemble à une construction qu'on a en Italie, en fait, dans ma région.
00:54:06Ah, c'est vrai ?
00:54:07Oui.
00:54:08Est-ce que vous connaissez Alberto Bello ?
00:54:09Oui.
00:54:11C'est ça.
00:54:12Est-ce qu'il y a une différence entre les objets qu'il utilise ?
00:54:16Il peut y en avoir, oui.
00:54:18Je t'arrête.
00:54:20Déjà , il y a une partie striée et une partie lisse.
00:54:23LÃ , elle est petite.
00:54:25LÃ , elle est grande.
00:54:26Et à chaque fois, la main de l'homme ou de la femme va travailler comme ça, comme ça, comme ça.
00:54:34Ça dépend.
00:54:35Ok.
00:54:36C'est un métier.
00:54:37Merci.
00:54:38Est-ce qu'il y a une raison particulière pour laquelle vous avez cette forme très petite ?
00:54:45De faire ça d'abord ?
00:54:47Oui.
00:54:48Parce qu'en fait, si on prenait un morceau…
00:54:51Voilà .
00:54:52Si on arrive comme ça…
00:54:53Vas-y, fais-le.
00:54:54Ah.
00:54:55Alors, en fait, il y a des craquelures partout, alors que là , il n'y en a plus.
00:55:00Ok.
00:55:01Voilà .
00:55:02C'est la qualité de la texture et le visuel, l'esthétique, en fait.
00:55:08Mais nous avons fait énormément d'études.
00:55:10Nous sommes des scientifiques du tapet du beurre.
00:55:14Ok.
00:55:17Donc, actuellement, le match est entre Lucienne l'embobineuse et Fred le mastiqueur.
00:55:26Il y a quelque chose dans ce bâtard.
00:55:31Mon grand-père avait fait le même métier bien avant.
00:55:38Et j'avais toujours entendu dire que ce métier était difficile, compliqué.
00:55:43Voilà .
00:55:44Mais j'ai un défaut.
00:55:46Je fais toujours le contraire de ce qu'on me dit.
00:55:49Et comme ça, je peux comprendre.
00:55:51Et en fait, je suis tombé amoureux.
00:55:53Aujourd'hui, il y a peut-être 2% de la production beurrière qui se fait en baratte.
00:56:00Tout le reste fait avec des butirateurs, des canons à beurre.
00:56:04Il faut nourrir le plus grand nombre.
00:56:08C'est très important.
00:56:09Mais je pense que, voyez, effectivement, si dans l'endroit où nous sommes, on remplaçait tous mes collaborateurs, tous mes compagnons par des machines, on irait beaucoup plus vite.
00:56:24On gagnerait certainement beaucoup plus d'argent, mais il ne se passerait plus rien ici.
00:56:33Si j'ai fait ce métier, c'est aussi pour qu'il se passe quelque chose.
00:56:36S'il n'y a plus rien, ça m'intéresse pas.
00:56:39S'il n'y a plus rien.
00:56:41Amen.
00:56:42Non.
00:56:45If poultry isn't for you, you can always substitute a showstopper turkey made of cake.
00:56:51Sarah Hardy makes incredible, realistic cakes and chocolates completely by hand.
00:56:58From realistic chocolate fossils to severed head cakes, her work is often creepy and incredibly lifelike.
00:57:09Her turkey cake is made from four layers of sponge, covered with a bright pink buttercream icing.
00:57:18This icing helps give the bird its realistic pink skin tone.
00:57:23So how do you get into making these shocking cakes?
00:57:27I was an artist and I went to art school and one of the ways that I paid my way through my exhibiting years was to make waxwork figures for museums.
00:57:34And we travelled around and made displays of battle scenes.
00:57:41I mean a lot of the work that I was doing was travelling.
00:57:43It was also using chemicals that I didn't want to use when I was pregnant.
00:57:46So I stopped.
00:57:47It did go a bit bonkers because I stopped working.
00:57:50And then once I had kids and they grew up a little bit, I could start making them cakes.
00:57:53And that's, I couldn't help but start making sculpted cakes for them.
00:57:57So that's where it started.
00:57:58And then it just got us slightly weirder and weirder.
00:58:06You know, we all know what cake is, why not change it and just have a bit more of a laugh.
00:58:11When you're buying a chocolate or a cake, you tend to be giving it to someone as a present.
00:58:17So it's someone you want to give them an experience, not just a taste experience.
00:58:20You can give them the experience of surprise and a little bit of joy as well.
00:58:25But most of the ideas are just things that I love.
00:58:31So I'm interested in natural history, internal organs, historical artefacts.
00:58:37And if I like it and I think it's cool, I'll make it edible.
00:58:45The process of making one of these intricate cakes can take days and would cost over $600 to order.
00:58:51Most of my work is highly realistic, so it looks like something else.
00:58:57And the idea is that there's a moment where you're not quite sure.
00:59:00I just wanted to shock people whilst giving them pleasure,
00:59:03because I mean a cake is always going to taste nice,
00:59:05but it's always good to give them a question what they're looking at.
00:59:13Once the cake is fully shaped and coated in icing,
00:59:16small dots of marzipan are placed all over.
00:59:21When the final layer is added, these give the impression of plucked skin.
00:59:27The final layer is a thin sheet of marzipan.
00:59:31It's draped over the cake and then worked carefully to add fine details.
00:59:39Once it's all in place, the finishing touches are ready to be added.
00:59:42String is tied around the legs and the details are painted on in food dye.
00:59:46A syrup glaze is even used to baste the turkey and give it that shiny appearance.
00:59:52And once all that's finished, it's ready to serve.
00:59:55Sarah sells a range of her amazing chocolate work through her website.
01:00:00And if you want to make your own turkey cake, there's even a tutorial available on the site too.
01:00:04If you want to make your own turkey cake, there's even a tutorial available on the site too.
01:00:07If you want to make your own turkey cake, there's even a tutorial available on the site too.
01:00:11If you want to make your own turkey cake, then you are prepared for an tutorial available.
01:00:27The sequence might be finished before the recipe was released by the for salm poisoningated to be added to the for CAL undetermined.
01:00:30We've finished a great day.
01:00:31Like this, you might have thatructurally available on the site,
01:00:34but there's even a photoÃnh.
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