NORFOLK's most famous farmer, Bernard Matthews, is to buy back the company that bears his name in a £232m deal.

Mr Matthews has made a 185p-a-share offer which will see the group, which produces poultry, fish and oven-ready turkeys and was floated on the Stock Exchange in 1971, owned by the Matthews family and the management team.

The business will continue in "broadly its current form" and there are no plans for any major changes, said a statement.

The team making the offer said although the Bernard Matthews company had been successful, it had suffered from being given a "relatively disappointing" value on the stock market.

Bernard Matthews, who started the company himself in 1950 and is famous for describing his products as ''bootiful'', said he had been thinking about taking it private for the last nine months.

"Over the 29 years on the stock market we have never used it as a source of funds," he said.

"Most people float to have access to funds, but we haven't used it for that purpose."

Taking the company private would give it that freedom, he added

Shares in the group jumped 19 per cent on the announcement rising 29p to close in on the 185p offer price.

Mr Matthews, who started the company by selling 12 turkeys because ''I couldn't afford to keep them'', said of today's deal: ''Its not bad for a little old Norfolk boy, is it?''

He will continue to run the company, which employs around 4,000 staff in Norfolk and Suffolk, after the buy