What it’s like to be a Butterball Turkey Talk-Line expert during the holiday season: ‘You better love turkey and become a turkey-tarian like we all are’
The holiday season can be a stressful time for countless reasons, but the turkey-tarians at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line are here to ensure that preparing Thanksgiving dinner isn't one of them.
The food manufacturing company, which specializes in all things turkey and deli meats, has been an essential resource for thousands of people over the past 40 years that its turkey hotline has been available, offering people tips on how to best prepare for the holiday meal. In its latest holiday season, the Turkey Talk-Line is taking to social media as Butterball introduces a test kitchen exclusively for TikTok.
Carol Miller, Bill Nolan and Karen Wilcher are just three of more than 50 experts available via call, text and live chat to field questions about turkey prep, recipes and cooking from November 1 to December 24. And although they range in years of experience, Wilcher tells Yahoo Life that they're all proud turkey lovers.
"You better love turkey and become a turkey-tarian like we all are," Wilcher says.
That's just one of the requirements to work on the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, which also necessitates working on Thanksgiving Day. "If we deserted the folks on Thanksgiving day, that would be bad," Miller tells Yahoo Life. "That's the day we share everything that makes Thanksgiving a little smoother."
From the day that lines open and leading up to Thanksgiving Day, experts are asked questions about how to thaw a turkey, how to stuff it and even how to cut it before serving. With social media, responses have gotten quite creative in order to land a new audience of people hosting their first holidays.
"We are interested in being wherever our consumers need us to be," Wilcher says. "And we realized, hey, old-school cooks once upon a time were calling us. But many of the millennials and younger people are interested in meeting us on social media platforms. So we're available to them there."
Admittedly, the platform presented a learning curve for some of the experts, including Miller who has been working the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line for 37 years. With the help of her grandson, however, she got her "groove" and participated in some videos.
In whatever way and on whatever platform, however, the most important thing to each turkey-tarian is helping people to enjoy the best Thanksgiving meal that they can.
"I enjoy helping people. I like to cook. I like to eat what I cook. I like to share what I've cooked with people I know, and even people I don't know," Wilcher says. "And so this gives me an opportunity to do that."
Video produced by Stacy Jackman
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