Career
Matthews worked as a trainee livestock auctioneer at Waters & Son between 1946 and 1948. During an auction at Acle market, he saw 20 freshly laid turkey eggs for sale, which he bought for a shilling each, and then acquired the same day a paraffin-oil incubator, which he bought for £1 10s. The venture to raise them in his future mother-in-law's back garden didn't pay off, as he had not calculated for the additional cost of feed for the birds.
After serving his two-year National service in the Royal Air Force, Matthews became an insurance clerk to earn an income, and started his company in 1950, buying more turkeys. He was only able to join the business full-time after spending £3,000 buying the dilapidated Great Witchingham Hall, once the home of John Norris, and filling its 35 rooms with turkeys. While Matthews and his wife lived in two unheated rooms, turkeys were hatched in the dining-room, reared in the Jacobean bedrooms and slaughtered in the kitchens.
In 1964 he met Nikita Khrushchev to discuss the modernisation of the Russian poultry industry. In 1980 the company launched its first TV commercial featuring Turkey Breast Roast, with Matthews himself introducing the famous "Bootiful" catchphrase in his thick Norfolk accent, and becoming part of what has been described as the "national consciousness".
Matthews was appointed a CVO in the New Year's Honours List December 2006, for his service with the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, a scheme for which he had also previously been awarded a CBE. However, in view of the H5N1 outbreak in late January 2007 at his Holton, Suffolk, plant, Matthews asked for the investiture on 9 February 2007, at which he had been due to receive the CVO, to be postponed. In January 2010, he retired from the position of Chairman of Bernard Matthews Ltd at the age of 80.
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