For your holiday meals, finding the right turkey can sometimes be even more challenging than cooking it — especially if you want a bird free of genetically modified organisms.

Armand and Teddi Bechard, along with their seven children, started the Bechard Family Farm back in 2000 just outside of Conway, Missouri, to appeal to such discriminating consumers.

“All of our meat, chicken, turkey, pork, beef and lamb are non-GMO (non-genetically modified organisms), which costs a little more to raise and process than regular noncommodity meats,”  Teddi Bechard told The Scoop. “They’re all raised on a pasture with no chemicals.”

Bechard says it’s important to the family that their meat is raised and processed away from any chemicals. (Besides raising the turkeys, the family processes them as well.)

“People can either come out to the farm to pick up their meat, or come to one of our many delivery days at local places in Springfield, such as Mama Jean’s or Homegrown Food,” Bechard says. “But we do not actually sell them in-store.”

The Bechards take a $10 deposit through their website or one of the delivery locations, “just to make sure the buyer is serious about the bird and also to help us cover the cost of growing them.”

“The $10 deposit is taken off of the actual price of the bird, once the bird is delivered or collected,” Bechard says. “They’re always delivered fresh, so they will need to be frozen.”

The Bechards have decided to keep their business local.

“We do not ship our meats because that defeats the entire purpose of keeping it local,” Bechard says. “We want to support our local economy as best we can. We’re even a big part of the Farmer’s Market of the Ozarks — but just from spring through October each year.”