Finally some good news in 2020
15 years after they were discontinued, Bernard Matthews has announced the return of Turkey Twizzlers.
In 2005, Turkey Twizzlers came under fire from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, as he singled out the school dinners staple in 2005 as part of his campaign to improve the diets of children.
Speaking about them at the time, Oliver derided the fact they were only 34 percent turkey, adding that "the prospect of what else is in them isn’t particularly good".
The publicity actually
increased sales of the frozen product, but school caterers started to
pull Twizzlers from their menu and Bernard Matthews chose to stop production in 2005.
Now however they have announced that they are bringing Turkey Twizzlers back - albeit with a healthier new recipe.
They will also come in two different flavours - Original Tangy Tomato and Chilli Cheese.
The redesigned product will go on sale on Thursday.
https://youtu.be/UghuPenKSBU
"We have been discussing the return of the Twizzler for some time," Bernard Matthews marketing director, David Leigh told
BBC News.
"Obviously we'd like the product to go into schools, but for the minute, we've focused on going into what I guess you'd call mass-market retail."
The new Twizzlers will be 70 percent meat and have 87 kcal - compared to the 34 percent meat and 137 kcal of the original.
"If you look at our product now," Leigh continued. "And let's say you compared, say, two pork sausages to two Twizzlers, there's 83 percent more saturated fat in two average pork sausages compared to two Twizzlers.
"So we have spent a lot of time making sure that we are delivering a healthy, a significantly healthier, product than it was before. It is very much a different product."
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Turkey Twizzlers were seen as a quintessential example of school dinner food - but they became a talking point following the broadcast of
Jamie's School Dinners.
"Getting all the cheap, processed junk food out of schools and getting the dinner ladies cooking real food is going to help the kids across Britain," Oliver said in a statement in 2005 when
Twizzlers were removed by a major school lunch supplier, "and will save money in the long run as we won't be creating so many problems down the line for the NHS."
