TYLER - Nobody needs a Greenberg Smoked Turkey from Tyler, Texas, but lots of people want one.
Owner Sam Greenberg said between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he's on pace to season and smoke 200,000 of his mahogany-colored birds.
"Our business is very strong," he said. "We've just come off the largest Thanksgiving we've ever had in history. So, something must be a part of that."
The turkeys are given mainly as gifts. So far this year, Greenberg said business is up 10 to 12 percent. Most of that business, he said, comes in small orders, with customers typically buying one to two at time.
After a few flat years, Greenberg is seeing a change in customer behavior.
"It feels to me that people are buying gifts," he said. "They're buying things for their family. They're buying things for their friends, and it certainly appears to me that the economy is healing."
Many of his customers keep coming back, often talking to a salesperson who has worked there for more than 30 years.
As the third generation owner, Greenberg said it's his job to make as few changes as possible. He only started taking credit cards two years ago.
"That's my objective is to make it a tradition and make it the absolute same every year,” he said.
Seventy-one years ago, Greenberg shipped its first ever mail order turkeys to a family in Dallas. Now, outside of Tyler, Dallas continues to be the company’s largest market, with customers that order turkeys year after year
Dallas businessman Jerry Williamson, of Williamson Printing Company, tasted his first Greenberg turkey over 30 years ago.
"I said, 'Man that is really good,'" said Jerry Williamson, of Williamson Printing Company.
He's been a customer ever since. Williamson's industry has been slow to recover from the recession, but he still ordered 300.
With shipping, they start at around $40.
"We like to give these to people who are good customers, good friends of the company and who appreciate it,” Williamson said.
In the last years and months, Greenberg has enjoyed publicity from the likes of Oprah and the New York Times. But, he doesn't seek the attention.
"If you pay attention to the product and you pay attention to what you're doing, the other stuff will come,” he said.
Greenberg said that's the only way to turn a new customer of the Texas turkey tradition into a customer for life.
