Turkey firm stops selling imports

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Bernard Matthews was at the centre of a bird flu outbreak last year

Turkey producer Bernard Matthews is to stop selling imported turkey meat.

From August all the turkey the major poultry producer sells in the UK will be reared on its own farms in East Anglia, the firm told BBC Look East.

The Norfolk-based firm has previously been importing some meat from Hungary and Brazil.

The move was to help restore the firm's reputation, which was tarnished by the bird flu outbreak and news that some of its meat was sourced abroad, it said.

From 2010 the company will also begin using only British pork and chicken in the rest of its range.

An outbreak of bird flu at one of its farms in Suffolk last year caused sales to slump.

But the outbreak, it emerged the company was importing some of its turkey from a factory it owned in Hungary.

Matt Pullen, of Bernard Matthews, told the BBC that consumers had thought that the firm only produced turkey from East Anglia and the Hungary revelation had "undermined the trust they always had in our brand".

He said the decision to sell only turkeys reared in its farms in East Anglia in the UK would "start to repair some of the damage to the brand".