Derek Kelly, turkey pioneer who transformed the British Christmas with the KellyBronze
With the help of Delia Smith’s endorsement he persuaded consumers to overcome an aversion to occasional black feather stubs in their birds
Derek Kelly, who has died aged 95, led the revival in the 1980s of the traditional bronze-feathered turkey; his prize-winning KellyBronze birds have been described as “the Rolls-Royce of turkeys”.
A generation earlier, the traditional dark-feathered breeds – including the bronze, named for the metallic sheen in the feathers – had been the popular Christmas choice. But by the 1960s, customers were beginning to demand a pearly white skin and became increasingly squeamish about the black feather stubs left in the flesh of dark-feathered turkeys after plucking.
The rush to churn out cheap, white-feathered turkeys came at the expense of taste. As Delia Smith put it, “demand prompted mass production and intensive rearing, which in turn meant that the turkeys were fattened too fast on unsuitable food, and not hung properly. The result was a ‘sliced-white’ turkey with about as much character and flavour as a factory-baked loaf.”
Derek Kelly had experience of the commercial turkey industry, having worked as a manager for Bernard Matthews, then at the American turkey breeder River Rest, and finally at his own farm near Danbury in Essex, where he bred prize-winning white turkeys.
He and his wife Mollie – a butcher’s daughter, who gave popular “breast-down” turkey-roasting demonstrations – also kept a few traditional breeds as a hobby, and they agreed that the flavour was superior. When a slump in the fresh turkey market in the 1970s, thanks to the rise of frozen turkeys and the decline in traditional butchers’ shops, forced them to rethink their business, their son Paul urged them to “go retro” and sell bronzes to a niche market.
Bronze turkey numbers, meanwhile, had plummeted, and the Kellys went around the country buying up the remaining birds from puzzled producers. They developed the KellyBronze, a cross between the flavourful but small-breasted Norfolk Black, the Cambridge Bronze and a little of the Wrolstad White. The birds grew to 28 weeks – double the lifespan of a mass-produced bird – then were dry-plucked and hung for at least 14 days for a more gamey flavour.
In 1984, the first year they brought KellyBronzes to market, only about two dozen were sold. The next year it was 800, thanks to American expatriates in London, where Kelly supplied upmarket food halls. At first, butchers were wary of the black feather stubs, but Paul came up with the slogan: “Look for the designer stubble to guarantee a true farmer’s turkey.” The business finally achieved lift-off in 1989 with Delia Smith’s endorsement.
Today the Kelly Turkeys business breeds and hatches a quarter of all fresh Christmas turkeys in Britain, sending one-day-old poults out to farms across the country, and raising 35,000 KellyBronzes in-house. The KellyBronze has also become popular in the US, with The Washington Post reporting: “They’re raising Thanksgiving turkeys with a British accent.”
Derek Kelly was born on June 23 1930 in the village of Brancepeth, Co Durham. His parents were teachers who insisted he should study agriculture at university before becoming a farmer. Embarking on a Master’s in genetics, he was persuaded to focus on poultry rather than cows.
He began farming on his in-laws’ Yorkshire hill farm, then managed a large farm in Berkshire, before joining the US giant Arbor Acres, who were hoping to introduce broiler chickens to the British market. In 1971, after River Rest went bust, he bought its Essex hatchery from the receiver, and founded Kelly Turkeys.
In 1981 he and his wife Mollie appeared on The Generation Game demonstrating how to truss a turkey.
He was appointed MBE in 1997.
Kelly’s friendship with Delia Smith led to his becoming an associate director of Norwich City Football Club.
In 2004, he handed over the business to his son Paul and returned to cows, breeding Aberdeen Angus and Wagyu.
Derek Kelly’s wife Mollie died in 2010; he is survived by their three sons and a daughter.
Derek Kelly, born June 23 1930, died January 18 2026
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
