Bernard Matthews Products

jbwdck

Hi, with all the info available today regarding food manufacturers as a past employee I thought people might like to know a few things about Bernard Matthews products. I worked for the company for over 20 years and, like most food manufacturers there were some corners cut, to produce products quickly enough to meet the retailers demanding schedules. But I have to say that overall, the hygiene and saftey standards were exellent. Product wise there has always been a large supposed difference between Branded, Shops own, and Budget products. Bernatd Matthews Branded products have over the last few years improved in nutritional quality a dramatic amount, no doubt in part to Jamie Oliver. However, recently the company has begun to produce some supermarket own brands and, apart from very minor changes to recepies, the products are basicaly the same. Also when it comes to buying your Christmas Turkey, all the big supermarkets buy their fresh and frozen birds from Matthews. I can honestly say this, the supermarket own label birds are the same birds, raised on the same farms, to the same standards, with the same feeds. Your M&S, Tescos Finest, Bernard Matthews Gold Label self basting turkey, is the same bird as your co-op own label. This also holds true for their other products. They are essentialy the same, only in a different bag.
I know this sounds a bit like a promo for Bernard matthews, but despite some bad press over the past, they do actually produce some very good food products.

~~Diane~~

I've never bought a Bernard Mathews product since watching a program about them and seeing employees battering the turkeys with baseball bats.

The only turkey we eat is at christmas and that is from a local butchers.

jenniewb

Yes BM may sell to many stores, but I think you'd be very disillusioned to assume that ALL the chicken in the supermarket example, were bought from BM.

tessie_bear

we used to buy a lot of the bm products but went off them after the bad publicity...cant say i fancy them now but thanks op that was interesting to hear

davetrousers

Bernard Matthew don't get any of my money, now or in the future.

sassyblue

~~Diane~~ wrote: »

I've never bought a Bernard Mathews product since watching a program about them and seeing employees battering the turkeys with baseball bats.

The only turkey we eat is at christmas and that is from a local butchers.

Me too. They used to have a factory next door to one l worked at once and the cruelty went on there too so l don't for a minute think it will have stopped even now.

Will NEVER buy BM products because of it.

billieboy_2

~~Diane~~ wrote: »

I've never bought a Bernard Mathews product since watching a program about them and seeing employees battering the turkeys with baseball bats.

The only turkey we eat is at christmas and that is from a local butchers.

The article I saw they were using the turkeys as baseball bats:mad:. What do people get out of treating a living creature like that? I too won't buy any Bernard Matthews product.

Eeyore2009

Bernard Matthews does not get my money after the bad publicity!

joeyboy

Their reputation for treated of turkeys isn't amazing, though it is rather amusing to think some folks might avoid them because it's been made public, and assume similarly priced brands somehow treat them with respect. Especially supermarket own brand frozen products, if the chicken/turkey is frozen, chances are it's from

A) Thailand

Brazil

C) South Korea

if it's a product like nuggets, drummers, dippers etc, most likely Thailand

if it's just frozen skinless pieces, most likely Brazil.

I really doubt they show much respect for their barn/cage reared chickens over there, at least we have SOME animal welfare legislation, even if it's not enforced as well as it could be, far east..that's another kettle of fish.

There is also the fact that was one video, you've probably all seen videos of farms supplying KFC kicking chickens about. The fact is you don;t see the other 100's of farms who at least handle them with some sort of care, you're just served up sensationalist stories, that's the way the media is. You hear about how terrible police are, not the 1000's of crimes they stop, you here about how some NHS hospital kills people, not the other hundreds who excel. You'll get bad staff in any industry, it doesn't represent the company as a whole, though to be fair, when it comes to low priced meats..there's a reason they're so cheap, and animal welfare costs money...

jenniewb

joeyboy wrote: »

Their reputation for treated of turkeys isn't amazing, though it is rather amusing to think some folks might avoid them because it's been made public, and assume similarly priced brands somehow treat them with respect. Especially supermarket own brand frozen products, if the chicken/turkey is frozen, chances are it's from

A) Thailand

Brazil

C) South Korea

if it's a product like nuggets, drummers, dippers etc, most likely Thailand

if it's just frozen skinless pieces, most likely Brazil.

I really doubt they show much respect for their barn/cage reared chickens over there, at least we have SOME animal welfare legislation, even if it's not enforced as well as it could be, far east..that's another kettle of fish.

There is also the fact that was one video, you've probably all seen videos of farms supplying KFC kicking chickens about. The fact is you don;t see the other 100's of farms who at least handle them with some sort of care, you're just served up sensationalist stories, that's the way the media is. You hear about how terrible police are, not the 1000's of crimes they stop, you here about how some NHS hospital kills people, not the other hundreds who excel. You'll get bad staff in any industry, it doesn't represent the company as a whole, though to be fair, when it comes to low priced meats..there's a reason they're so cheap, and animal welfare costs money...

I think your comparisons are a bit too far out of context. You could rationalize that there would be errors in Hospitals for example, even errors and faults in the police- no service is perfect and few out step the mark. Its easy to see that the faults are in the minority otherwise people would just stop going to hospital, would not bother with the police ever again, yet daily (almost hourly) I hear a police or ambulance siren coming from somewhere.

But obvious cruelty to animals- to the point where reporters found it easy to predict when and where and go in with a camera- all pre arranged- so they knew it was going to happen as it was regular enough. This just some how seems more frequent, taken less seriously and as a result, I don't trust lessons are learned nor that anything will be done about the gross misconduct.

Where as police may be fired, hospitals may be shut down, I don't trust that BM would react in the same way nor that the new staff would automatically have enough respect for their job. I do wonder not how people like that (those that are cruel) exist but what they are currently experiencing to make them react in such an evil way. Just makes me wonder about the conditions and mentality of the business more then anything else, that the cruelty of animals is/was just a symptom of another cause.

Kadeeae

~~Diane~~ wrote: »

I've never bought a Bernard Mathews product since watching a program about them and seeing employees battering the turkeys with baseball bats.................

Ditto here. Any turkey bought is from our local family run butcher, the turkeys are from local farms and not intensively reared.