BERNARD MATTHEWS is no stranger to controversy. The food manufacturer found itself on the ropes when chef Jamie Oliver fulminated against its turkey twizzlers during a national debate on school meals, and now the firm has been hit again, this time by the latest outbreak of bird flu.

The family firm began with just 20 turkeys and a second-hand incubator in 1950. Today the company is a global producer with an annual turnover of more than £400 million and employs around 7000 people worldwide.

Bernard Matthews is responsible for farming eight million turkeys every year in the UK and they are reared on 57 farms throughout Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Suffolk, where the outbreak was discovered.

The company has been built on an image of wholesome food for the family with its catchphrase "bootiful" being introduced in an advertising campaign in the 1980s along with a succession of processed turkey goods such as golden drummers, mini kievs and the now-notorious turkey twizzlers.

It was the latter that first threatened the brand name when, two years ago, TV chef Jamie Oliver demanded that turkey twizzlers be removed from school dinner menus. The product contained 22% fat when cooked - more than double the 10% maximum set by the Scottish Executive for processed meat, leading to a wave of schools withdrawing the product.

However, Bernard Matthews hit back with a new recipe which reduced the fat content to just 7% once cooked, and sales of turkey twizzlers soared 32% in one month compared with the same period in the previous year.

In January 2006, however, the company suffered another setback when it was forced to recall a batch of its ownbrand of Premium Sliced Honey Breast Turkey. It had printed the wrong use-by dateontheproduct;February27 instead of January 27.

Ninemonthslater,twoBernard Matthews workers from the Norfolk farmweresentencedto200hours' communityserviceaftertheywere filmed beating turkeys with sticks and kicking them.

The latest incident of a serious outbreak of bird flu, which has seen 260,000 turkeysdieandafurther159,000 slaughtered, could further damage the Bernard Matthews brand.

Asanindustry,poultryisworth £3 billion a year with egg sales alone bringing in £30m.

In light of the first UK confirmed case of bird flu in a dead swan in Cellardyke, Fife, in April last year, the British Poultry Council said it expected sales of poultry to dip until confidence recovered.

But supermarkets reported sales of poultry goods were largely unchanged after the Cellardyke incident. And so far, major supermarket chains Tesco and Asda have said they have no plans to pull Bernard Matthews products.

Bernard Matthews has stated that none of the affected birds has entered the food chain and so do not pose any risk to consumers.

GilesRead,aspokesmanforthe company, said: "Bernard Matthews is working closely with Defra Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and other industry bodies to contain the infection."