The proposed sale of a Boxted-based turkey farm looks set to cause a flap among Britain's top chefs and poultry connoisseurs.

John and Gillian Munson, who run Munson's Poultry, are putting Emdon, their Straight Road property, on the market for £400,000.

Over the years, they have supplied Rick Stein and the Roux brothers, as well as members of the Royal Family, Harrods, and Selfridges.

Delia Smith has been a long-standing customer, and features the firm's eggs on the front of one of her cookery books.

But now the couple, fed up with what they say is agricultural bureaucracy, want to sell up and move to their property in France's northern Dordogne.

Mr Munson said the rules and regulations imposed on him forced a move away from keeping livestock on site. Nowadays, he buys stock in and sells it on.

He said: "We are more worried about what will kill us, than what is good for us in the food we produce in this country."

Published Friday June 18, 2004

Brought to you by the Evening Gazette