Previously controversial turkey producer Bernard Matthews Farms have unveiled their new £1million rebranded identity, involving a logo and packaging redesign by Springetts, to be rolled out into supermarkets and stores from tomorrow.

Springetts, also responsible for the Options hot chocolate rebrand earlier this year, have taken the overall image of Bernard Matthews back to basics by focusing on their Norfolk farming heritage, a quality that focus groups have revealed is of crucial importance to customers.

Brand marketing controller Charlie Douglas believes the company’s damaged reputation has begun to improve thanks to the recent Springetts redesign, she expresses, “the key thing is we are refreshing our brand. We haven’t done anything for a long time”.

The company has been involved in a wealth of heavily mediatized and dramatic happenings over the last decade. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver emblematized their ‘turkey twizzler’ in 2005 as the epitome of unhealthy, mass-produced food. Consequently the infamous Bernard Matthews product was discontinued.

However, the company’s sales were rocked further by an animal welfare scandal in 2006, exposed by the covert filming of two contract workers who were reportedly recorded playing ‘baseball’ with live turkeys at the Norfolk plant.

Most notably, the discovery of the H5N1 influenza strand (avian flu) at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk in 2007 caused the banning of poultry imports from England in many European countries and inflicted a 10% slump on the UK poultry industry. Bernard Matthews saw their profits fall by as much as 50% in the weeks after the outbreak and it is estimated that the crisis cost Bernard Matthews at least £20 million.

Following another confirmed report of avian flu at a Bernard Matthews farm in March this year, the Springetts rebrand may provide a timely step in the right direction.

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