Life is no longer 'bootiful' for Bernard Matthews, who started his business with just 20eggs and a second-hand incubator.
Last year staff were secretly filmed playing baseball with live turkeys.
The year before many schools stopped serving Bernard's turkey twizzlers after they were rubbished by Jamie Oliver.
Jolly old Bernard, who used to voice his own TV adverts, must have wondered what next? only to wake up on Sunday morning to bird flu and the biggest cull the buttered side of the War of the Roses.
Last year his company profits fell from £40m to £26m. What future now for the careersof 4,100 employees rearing eight million birds on 57 UK farms?
I never did like the Matthews rolly-polly style of meat. I wouldn't lose any sleep if the whole lot disappeared from the supermarket shelves.
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Elliott wrote...
As a keeper of our little feathered friends (hens, in this instance), I can safely say that the eggs produced by my little cluckers are definitely superior to anything you're likely to get in your local T**co. I've once observed said blasphemy advertising half a dozen at significantly under the price at which it costs me to aquire my eggs; food, coop, etc. taken into account. Aside from the veterinary consequences of keeping so many birds in such an enclosed space (a breeding ground for rapid transmission of infections), I've also noticed that those birds which aren't bred purely for industrial quantities of food supply are much fitter, genetically. Enough said about 'efficiency' before good quality, at least people have seen a little of where their food actually comes from.
Posted by: Elliott | February 9, 2007 6:10 AM