A Norfolk poultry firm has donated its unsold meat and stuffing for charity Christmas dinners - finding a positive end to a "catastrophic" year.

Like many businesses in the sector, it has been a difficult 12 months for Traditional Norfolk Poultry (TNP), based at Shropham near Attleborough.

While already battling with soaring production costs, it lost tens of thousands of birds this year as the UK's worst-ever bird flu outbreak sparked mass culls across East Anglia.

It left the firm with a surplus of custom-made stuffing and bacon, already purchased from other suppliers, as there were not enough turkeys to make the expected number of "added value" products.

Rather than go to waste, five pallets of the food were donated to help Christmas dinners for Norwich-based homelessness, youth and community charities St Martins, The Matthew Project and the Phoenix Centre.

And despite this year's "devastating" losses, the firm was also able to find some chickens and turkeys to continue its annual donation to the Hemsby lifeboat crew, to thank them for their work during the year.

TNP managing director Mark Gorton said: "We have done everything we can to try and turn adversity into opportunity.

"This year has been devastating and catastrophic in equal measures, and we have been massively short of turkeys to supply our customers, which is why we have got this surplus of stuffing and bacon.

"It does make me and the business feel good to be able to use it rather than see it go to waste.

"Hopefully it will add an extra bit of sparkle to help to make a few more people's Christmasses just a little bit happier."

After collecting the donation for Hemsby lifeboat, coxswain Daniel Hurd said: "It has really put a smile on everyone's face.

"We didn't expect anything this year after all the company's struggles with bird flu so, for them to say they were going to do it, we were overwhelmed.

"The crew works tirelessly throughout the year and do a lot of fundraising events which take up a lot of family life, so to get an offer like this to give something back to the crew at this time of year is amazing."