LONDON — Plump turkeys in butcher shop windows. Harvest displays of pumpkin and corn. Sandwich boards describing groaning feasts.
Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday in Britain, but you might be forgiven for being fooled. It’s not hard to find someone to talk turkey, never mind sell you one. That’s because there are so many Americans in Britain these days that dozens of businesses have started selling the goods they need to celebrate.
Greg Klaes, a Detroit native who used to teach science on U.S. military base schools, started growing pumpkins 30 years ago so his students could carve Halloween jack-o-lanterns. This year, his Oxfordshire farm is selling 1,322 pounds a week, filling harvest decorations and pumpkin pies.
“I believe firmly that there’s a real integration of the societies,” he said. “There’s a lot of Americans and a lot people want to share their cultures.”
Klaes is one of some 200,000 U.K. residents who were born in the U.S., according to census data. That’s 26 percent more than in 2001. In Kensington and Chelsea, an upscale London borough that is home to many bankers and celebrities, U.S.-born residents make up 5 percent of the population.
And since there’s no other holiday that’s quite like Thanksgiving, businesses big and small are finding ways to get in on the celebrations. Dozens of restaurants are putting on spreads. Texas-based Whole Foods has turned its store on Kensington High Street into a one-stop holiday shopping center beginning with a sidewalk chalkboard that welcomes customers with the message “We are here to make your Thanksgiving epic.”
Even the mainstream British grocery chain Waitrose is getting involved. A few blocks down the High Street in a store that’s already decked out with red-and-green Christmas decorations, Waitrose has a small “Happy Thanksgiving” display, complete with a picture of a pumpkin wearing a buckled Pilgrim hat.
Offerings include Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, Carnation evaporated milk and Libby’s pumpkin, alongside British icons like Paxo Sage and Onion stuffing.
Turkey producer Bramble Farm in Surrey has been around since the 1930s and sold 100 or so special birds during the Thanksgiving season 15 years ago. Farm owner Derek Joy says he now sells 4,500.
