Talking turkey to Russians

AMERICANS have the Easter bunny. Now Vadim Vaneev wants to introduce Russia to the Easter turkey.

To get Russians to eat a North American food many are unfamiliar with, the entrepreneur has trademarked the term “Easter turkey” as a marketing gimmick. This year, he expects to sell 2.8 million birds.

“In the West they have Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey. We have the Easter one,” said Vaneev.

To make the connection clear to consumers, his company sells bagged turkey stamped with “Christ has risen” and a picture of a roast bird with Easter eggs and apples.

For Orthodox Easter, which falls on the same date as the Western one, the company suggests boiling a turkey fillet and drizzling it with citrus cheese sauce.

This year, the question of where Russia’s more than 140 million citizens get their food is growing more important as President Vladimir Putin finds himself increasingly isolated from the US and EU amid tension about Ukraine.

“Regardless of how relationships are going with other countries, Russia must develop its own agriculture, which deteriorated in the 1990s, to become a significant player in the global food market,” said Sergey Yushin, head of the country’s national meat association.

Turkey was not an obvious way to close the gap. Vaneev, who owns a restaurant and wholesale business, stumbled on turkey meat on a trip to Hungary and decided in 2003 to produce it in Russia.

Some banks were reluctant to fund a turkey business in a country where virtually no one ate it, so Vaneev eventually got the backing of the state-run Vnesheconombank.

To convince Russians to try the fowl, Vaneev will hold a Turkey Day in six cities to enable consumers to sample the meat and meet live birds.

Easter, usually celebrated with a cottage cheese cake to celebrate the end of the 40-day deprivation of Lent, is a perfect time to convince Russians to splurge on a new kind of meat, according to Vaneev.

That Russians are eating more of the meat came as a surprise to some at a meeting last year of the US National Turkey Federation, where Vaneev’s company was the only Russian producer represented.

“They regarded us with curiosity, asking: ‘Russia? Producing turkey?’ ” said Vaneev. “For Americans, it was as weird as if a US company were to start producing Matryoshka nesting dolls.” — Bloomberg