Bernard Matthews To Be More Bootiful
Complete overhaul of its brand
Bernard Matthews is planning a complete overhaul of its brand in the hope of recapturing the "bootiful" days of profitability it enjoyed as Britain's biggest poultry producer.
Shoppers gave Bernard Matthews products a frosty reception last year The company, which has survived bird flu, the dark days of the Turkey Twizzler row and allegations of animal cruelty, said today it was going back to its agricultural roots in Norfolk. Last year, it suffered losses of nearly £10m amid a consumer backlash following an outbreak of bird flu at its Suffolk processing plant and the revelation that it imported meat from Hungary.
The group said today that from the beginning of September, all its Bernard Matthews branded turkey products will be made with 100 % British turkey from its farms across East Anglia. The transformation of the brand will be led by cooked meats based on Bernard Matthews' British Golden Norfolk Turkey.
It also plans to launch the "Big Green Tick", a new frozen product range again made from British turkey breast. Noel Bartram, chief executive, said: "This repositioning of the company is the result of extensive planning with 2007 having been an exceptionally difficult year. "Although we successfully eliminated the January outbreak of avian flu on one of our farms within 72 hours, its occurrence has a significant impact on poultry sales." About 159,000 turkeys were culled at Bernard Matthew's Suffolk farm to prevent the spread of the H5N1 virus last year, dragging sales down by almost 10 % and badly shaking the group's reputation among shoppers.
The company's reputation had already been hit by a row over the fat content of Turkey Twizzlers. The infamous twizzler was banned from school dinner menus across the country following a campaign for better lunches by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. Bernard Matthews claimed that twizzlers contained 7 % fat, while some tests showed that they contained 22 % fat after being cooked.
School children consumed 123.8m twizzlers in the year before junk food was banned in schools, with each twizzler containing just 34 % meat. The group said its new products will be made with only natural ingredients, lower levels of saturated fats and salt, and no artificial colours and flavours. Bernard Matthews also said it plans to boost its offering of free-range turkey products to meet growing demand.
The company expects to return to profitable growth this year and will roll out a new advertising campaign in the Autumn. The company was borne of a classic rags-to-riches story, set up by Bernard Matthews, the son of a mechanic in the Norfolk village of Brook who left school with no qualifications.
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