As a parent and food writer, I will always remember with jubilation the day in 2005 when Turkey Twizzlers were discontinued. A gruesome array of gastronomic abominations jostled for space in supermarket freezers in those days, but the Twizzler was uniquely loathsome.
My objections began with the name. How could poultry baron Bernard Matthews have had the chutzpah to attach the word ‘turkey’ to a product which was just 34 per cent bird meat?
Next, it was designed in a way as to make it catnip to children. They came off the production line in 5in-long spring-like helixes and kids lapped them up in school canteens with the likes of potato smileys and baked beans.
A more nutrition-free meal it would be hard to conceive of.
A Turkey Twizzler (file photo). The partially meat spirals were subject to a campaign against them before they were discontinued in 2005
Unfortunately for the manufacturers, they reckoned without the messianic zeal of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. He took apart the Twizzler on his TV series Jamie’s School Dinners, revealing they were made of a kind of turkey slurry, emulsified with fat, starchy bulking agents and additives, sweeteners and flavourings — 40 ingredients in all.
The product became symbolic of the sort of ultra-processed food that health campaigners wanted to ban.
In the wake of the programme, several major catering organisations — under severe public pressure — announced they would no longer serve Turkey Twizzlers, and the brand was discontinued.
As someone who has spent almost 25 years writing about the horrors of the poultry industry and all its processed manifestations, I cheered their passing.
Jamie Oliver campaigned against Turkey Twizzlers in the early 2000s
So imagine my howl of outrage when I picked up the paper earlier this week to read that the Twizzler was making a comeback. Bernard Matthews, the company (the Norfolk businessman died in 2010), has announced a new version of Twizzlers will be in Iceland stores from today and in other supermarkets shortly after.
The timing of the Twizzler’s resurrection could not be more outrageous, coming within days of the Prime Minister launching a new campaign against obesity as study after study shows it is a major factor in fatalities from Covid-19.
In 2018, a petition to revive the Turkey Twizzler hosted by website Change.org attracted 27,700 signatures. You would have hoped this campaign was a joke, but it must have had Bernard Matthews’ bosses salivating at the scale of potential sales figures.
This week, the new Turkey Twizzlers — in two flavours, ‘tangy tomato’ and ‘chilli cheese’ — are on the market.
The new Twizzlers are certainly an improvement on the old ones.
They each contain 3.5g fat, 0.8g sugar and 0.42g salt for the tomato flavour and 5.4g fat, 1g sugar and 0.5g salt for the cheese variety.
Previously a Turkey Twizzler contained 34 per cent meat and around 137 calories, while the new version has 70 per cent meat and 87 calories. But to me, this is not the point. To bring back such an infamous product, even in this healthier incarnation, is like waving a pack of low-tar cigarettes in front of someone who used to smoke un-tipped, full-strength Capstans.
The new Twizzler will not be welcomed by many parents, constantly pestered by their children to feed them novelty foods, a clamour that only intensified during lockdown.
But now Turkey Twizzlers, launched in 1997, (file photo) are back. Which Rose writes must feel like a ‘calculated insult’ to Jamie Oliver
For Jamie Oliver, already disappointed by the long-term response to his healthy eating campaigns, it may feel like an almost calculated insult.
To me, this new episode recalls others that show the sometimes dark heart of the company started by Bernard Matthews, God rest his ‘bootiful’ soul.
He started in the intensive poultry farming business half a century ago and, over the years, a range of scandals attached themselves to the company. Welfare standards were always an issue for a pioneer in broiler house poultry rearing, where birds were enclosed in vast numbers in windowless sheds.
There were environmental wrongdoings, too, with effluent from one factory leaking into local rivers.
In 2006, the company was accused of animal cruelty when two workers at one of its Norfolk units admitted ill-treating birds, having been filmed playing ‘baseball’ with live turkeys. A year later it was at Bernard Matthews’ plant at Holton, Suffolk, that the H5N1 bird flu virus — extremely dangerous to humans — appeared in the UK for only the third time.
And while the Twizzler, launched in 1997, was terminated, Bernard Matthew’s other child-targeted turkey creation, battered Dinosaurs, remained on sale.
With just 46 per cent turkey meat, added rusk and rapeseed oil for bulk, they still contain 258 calories per 100g and 14g of fat per 100g.
But however disgusting they may sound, we must remember many find them tasty. Just £3 buys 1kg of dinosaurs, or 20 portions — this is ‘toy’ food designed to be consumed in large quantities.
I reiterate that this is not the time to be marketing anything other than the very healthiest of convenience foods. We can no longer ignore the dangers of obesity and poor diet. The NHS has been wilting under the strain of treating overweight patients including children.
The Government is introducing new measures to try to curb obesity and the food industry should be working with its customers to help them adopt better eating habits. It was left to Jamie Oliver, health experts and food writers like myself to turn the spotlight on Bernard Matthews all those years ago. I’m only sorry the company has again given us an example of its sector’s irresponsibility. If its cynical and exploitative action doesn’t persuade the Government to talk turkey on regulation, nothing will.
The company sees it differently. A Bernard Matthews spokesman said: ‘The next generation Turkey Twizzler is green and amber on the nutritional traffic light and contains 70 per cent turkey meat. It is no more processed than a typical sausage and has a higher meat content than many.
‘Trivialising the healthy eating debate to one product is counter-productive, especially one with sound nutritional credentials. Balance is essential and as part of a meal, including carbohydrates and vitamins from vegetables, the Turkey Twizzler is a good, affordable and tasty source of quality protein.
‘Bernard Matthews is a British, family orientated business that employs many in the East of England. We’d hope that the significant progress made is celebrated as a positive step.’
There is no comparison between sausages and Turkey Twizzlers, however, because there is a wide range to choose from and it is widely acknowledged that the best quality contain 90 per cent meat.
The new Twizzlers may be healthier, but given their history, I can’t help but feel disappointed to see them back on the menu.