Zelick Greenberg was the face of the smoked turkey business for 40 years, beginning in 1942. His son Sam Greenberg took over in 1982. The business began with Samuel I. Greenberg, father of Zelick. Samuel and his wife Selma Solinger Greenberg were both immigrants who became naturalized United States citizens. Each was born in Europe, Sam in Warsaw, Poland and Selma in Koenigsberg, Germany. Per one of the Federal census reports (and not surprisingly), both grew up in households that spoke Hebrew as the primary language. Sam came to the United States around 1900, apparently not accompanied by any adult relatives when he was still a young boy of about 13 to 15 years old. He was later routed to Galveston (the port of entry for many Jewish immigrants in Texas) by friends, arriving around 1903. Both of Sam’s parents and numerous other family members later joined Sam in Texas. Selma and Sam were married in Tyler in 1909. Their sons, Isadore and Zelick were each named for a father of the couple. Sam and Selma settled in to life in Tyler. Over the years, Sam had various jobs including working as a blacksmith, later as a kosher butcher and he also began a dairy business.
The family history is that around 1930, Sam began to smoke poultry in a smokehouse he had built on his own dairy farm, using a spice recipe handed down from San’s mother Jennie Greenberg. Friends and family began to request smoked turkeys from Greenberg. What began as the dairy farm’s side business evolved into the main family business. It had an early location near downtown Tyler. Sam died in 1941 of cardiac and other issues. Selma survived him another 15 years until her passing in 1956. Both are buried in Tyler.
Isadore, the eldest of their two sons, went to high school in Tyler before attending Texas A&M. His chosen profession was banking and he became an executive with a major Tyler bank. Isadore was well known in Smith County. When he retired, he was chairman of the board of Republic Bank Tyler, a successor to the bank he had begun to work for over 56 years earlier. He was well known in the community, involved in many civic organizations, clubs, a lodge and his local synagogue. Upon his death, he was interred in Tyler. Isadore was survived by his wife Edna and many descendants.
Zelick (who went by “Z.”) is most often identified as the driving inspiration for the initial growth of Greenberg Smoked Turkeys, now a landmark Tyler institution. Zelick had also completed high school in Tyler before graduating from Texas A&M with an electrical engineering degree. The company had been founded in 1939 and was still a regional East Texas business for a number of years. He was married to the former Joyce Modesett. The company legend tells of Zelick expanding the market by shipping a dozen turkeys to friends in Dallas via rail in 1942. By the 1990s, the company was said to be shipping 150,000 turkeys each year. The kosher portion of its business eventually declined and was discontinued in the 1990s. Now production is estimated to be over 200,000.
Stories are many describing the early days of Greenberg Smoked Turkeys. Various articles note that in the beginning, they did not even have shipping boxes and used boxes scavenged from grocery stores. Articles note that they used candy boxes in shipping by rail at least one year. The company struggled with rationing during the war years. Zelick and his wife Joyce worked in the business each day. Joyce filled out order forms by hand and in pencil, until she recruited a friend who owned a typewriter. This allowed them to type orders and shipping labels. Today buyers are able to order online, but for many years, orders were either mailed in, faxed in or called in. The company had no 800 number for a while after the advanced numbers became available. For a long time, they declined to take credit cards, use unsolicited mailings, had no catalog and did not sell via retail grocery outlets. Joyce discussed postal codes in a 1980 newspaper article. At first they declined a unique postal code partly due to the significant cost of updating their address system and reprinting their labels. Customers did not seem to mind. They were loyal and respected the way Greenberg did business.
The company does not raise its own turkeys, but buys them from trusted suppliers. It also uses third party processors such as a former cooperative by the name of Tex-Best Turkeys, Inc., no longer in business. Tex-Best was incorporated in Marlin in 1957 as a grower cooperative. It had its own employees and management but it was operated for the benefit of its customers, like Greenberg. Its profits were distributed to the customers in proportion to their patronage. While it was in business, Tex-Best picked up the turkeys from the growers and processed them to the point where they were warehoused in their blast freezer until they were shipped to the next destination. Tex-Best was in business for about 37 years before it was acquired by Swift in 1974. Greenberg was believed to have been a patron, at least for a while.
The business survived a fire on Christmas Eve of 1951. The costly fire reportedly started from ashes from the smoking process having igniting a hay stack. The fire expanded to the office area, requiring them to rebuild many of their buildings.
Zelick Greenberg passed away in the fall of 1996 and Joyce followed him in death in 2005. Their son Sam, a member the third generation to operate the business, had served as chief executive since the early 1980s. His capable leadership since that time has helped the company retain its status as a leader in the market.
The business survived an explosion and fire at the Tyler plant on the evening of November 6, 2020. It was a Friday evening. The last employee had left at the close of business around 5:30 and the fire broke out around 8:30. The worst of the fire was extinguished within a couple of hours. It was determined that a freezer warehouse had burned along with 87,000 turkeys which essentially ruined its business for that season. Thankfully, the company recovered. They announced a rebuilding program and were back in business the next season. Christus Trinity Mother Frances Health System and the Houston Temple Church of God in Christ partnered for a benefit to Tyler citizens in 2021 when they gave away 700 of the prized birds that Thanksgiving.
Although turkeys are considered the traditional meat for Thanksgiving, it is estimated that one third of their business is for that holiday and two thirds relates to the Christmas season. Greenberg turkeys are still smoked using hickory wood, it is said, rather than using electricity or gas in cooking. Greenberg turkeys generate a lot of smiles and goodwill during the late fall and winter each season. We can only hope that this venerable Texas business thrives for many more years.
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