From
20 chicks to 7 million turkeys
Bernard Matthews is the top turkey processor in the UK. The
company produces fresh, chilled, and frozen turkey and value-added turkey
products under the Bernard Matthews and Golden Norfolk brand names. It operates
56 turkey farms in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Lincolnshire. Founder and chairman,
Bernard Matthews, started the company in 1950 with just 20 turkey eggs and a
used incubator and grew the business by coaxing consumers into thinking of
turkey as a year-round meat by introducing value-added products.
Bernard Matthews Ltd. is the United Kingdom’s leading producer of turkey
meats. One of the largest in Europe. The company holds a 30 per cent share of
the Christmas whole turkey market, traditionally the leading season for turkey
sales. Yet Bernard Matthews has also been the major force in transforming
turkey meat from a once-a-year treat to an everyday food, in part through the
launch of food processing operations in the early 1970s. Born in 1930, Bernard
Matthews eventually became the subject of one of the United Kingdom’s most
well-known rags-to-riches stories in the post-World War II era.
The son of a Brooke, Norfolk, car mechanic, Matthews experienced an early
childhood marked by the struggles of the Great Depression. In 1946. Then just
16, Matthews left school and took up an apprenticeship as a livestock
auctioneer. This provided him with a small but steady wage. In 1948, Matthews
left the apprenticeship to complete his two years of military service.
By the end of the 1940s, Matthews had begun laying plans to launch his own
business. In 1950, Matthews spotted an opportunity at a farmer’s market in
Acle. There he purchased a crude incubator, powered by paraffin oil, and 20
turkey eggs, for a total investment of just £1.10. Matthews successfully raised
12 of the turkeys, then promptly sold them all for more than eight times his purchase
price.
The success of this first venture led Matthews to develop his turkey
operation while continuing his career in the insurance field. By 1953, however,
Matthews decided to leave his job and become a full-time turkey farmer.
He and his wife Joyce bought Great Witchingham Hall, a substantial country
house in Norfolk, and 36 acres for £3,000. The 37-room Elizabethan manor was
pressed into service, helped by the fact that “farm buildings” enjoyed tax
breaks. Matthews and his wife worked 13 hours a day and lived in one room of the
80 room hall while his turkeys were reared in the other 79.
Matthews was one of the first poultry farmers to artificially inseminate
turkeys, leading to a big increase in fertility rates.Turkeys were hatched and reared in the bedrooms, and prepared for the table in the Hall kitchen. Mathews calculated that it is cheaper to keep birds inside his home than in runs outside.
The company made its fortune by providing Britain with cheap protein. He also tapped into one of the most revolutionary phenomenons in post-War Britain: the home freezer. After a trip to America, he realised that families needed meat they could take straight from the freezer and with little or no preparation, place it straight into the oven.
He bought a 330-acre airfield at Weston Longville, Norfolk, for £17,750 in 1959 and turned it into a farm for 250,000 turkeys which became the biggest turkey farm in the world.
By 1968 he was Europe’s largest turkey farmer. In 1971 it was listed on the London Stock Exchange, at the time valued at £4 million. In the last couple of years, it had started to record a turnover of £330 million and employs 2,500 people.
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