The future for butchers

  • Interesting article.

    I think like most other industries, this one is undergoing significant change. New business models are required. And personally despite the inability to select the exact piece of meat, I'd rather support an online farm to table vendor than colesworth.

    ABC News: Outback butchers buck urban trend by outdoing supermarket competition.

    More city butchers face chopping block, but no such snags for country meat sellers
    Outback butcheries are evolving into small business powerhouses as the paddock-to-plate trend helps shield them from supermarket competition. Here's how…
    www.abc.net.au

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  • I actually had this very conversation with some friends who were Holidaying in Aus from Kentucky.

    They were amazed at the number of Butchers we have here. As they confirmed exactly what Bentley Meredith said. High End shop nowehere else.

    People who dont care what the meat they are buying is will just default to price and convenience i.e. Colesworth.

    Those who want quality and are prepared to pay for it will source a Butcher. The problem i believe is that we have too many butchers for the amount of people who care about quality meat.

    Enjoy your "Q"
    James

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  • The problem i believe is that we have too many butchers for the amount of people who care about quality meat.

    I find many butchers (the chains that sell in shopping centres in particular) to be not much better than colesworth. They sell crap.

    You have to put in a lot of effort and feel like a nuisance to even have a conversation with them sometimes. Hard to do when there's a queue waiting to be served.

    It would be great if we could try new business models. The members only help yourself 24/7 model sounds really interesting. I'm happy to pay a reasonable premium for good quality and good farming practices.

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  • I just moved into Albury 1 Month ago so I'm definitely going to check them out.

    This looks to be a great town if you're a Carnivore :bbq: with a few BBQs.

    There's another good Butchery over on the East side of town called Borella Butchery, they are into low and slow American Cuts as well as the traditional but with more the BBQ fraternity in mind, they also sell and hire GMG Pellet grills.

    Apparently, there's some BBQ Competition guys that live in this region and I was told that they trying to get a local Comp sorted on the Border in the near future. I've also been told of some their good Butcheries in the area away from the Shopping precincts but I'm yet to confirm...so much to see around here.

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  • People who dont care what the meat they are buying is will just default to price and convenience i.e. Colesworth.

    I dunno. I want this to be true but I find the meat pretty reasonable at both. You just have to shop the midrange.

    Tbh as a bbq-er a butcher is almost wasted on me. I just want the cheap cuts for low and slow. The butcher advantage is you can get products you can't get at the supermarket (eg, bone-in pork shoulder). Still seems hard to find decent American style cuts at butcher's though - brisket packet or pork butt etc.

    Otherwise I don't care for the crappy rissoles or "gourmet" sausages.

    The other thing is that I rarely eat red meat. Ill have a t-bone now and then buy for my family out meat consumption is chicken and fish (and mince).

    Maybe most butchers don't need to worry about the local consumer and just supply to restaurants?

  • Interesting article.

    ABC News: Outback butchers buck urban trend by outdoing supermarket competition.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/202…rends/101832588

    With the consolidation of abattoirs there's less sources of meat. If they're slaughtering and packaging at the abattoir and all the butchers are doing are reselling the value of a local butcher may not be much better than a supermarket.

    At the local supermarket at a small shopping there has been a constant changeover of the butcher located at it's front door as they keep going bust competing against the supermarket. This time a meat wholesaler has opened up there instead. Let's see how long that lasts.

    One of the key things mentioned in the article are the butchers that slaughter their own meat. I see they can offer something different.

    The other type of butcher are the one run by asians and other cultures where they use different cuts of meat compared to the Aussie norm. They seem to be going ok.

  • I think most people on this forum prefer local butchers. I'm lucky to be near a handful of good butchers (Lugarno Gourmet Meats and Jumbuck Meats Oatley). I only go colesworth when I come home late.

    Pricewise very fair, mb4 brisket $18/kg. Properly cut from fresh bodies.

    I tried coles short ribs @ $14/kg, you have to sort through the heap to get meat!

  • People who dont care what the meat they are buying is will just default to price and convenience i.e. Colesworth.


    Those who want quality and are prepared to pay for it will source a Butcher.

    Not that simple. 5 children, 4 of them teenagers, all of them doing elite sport, and I mean 5-8 training sessions a week each. They are burning a lot of calories, and they need to be re-fuelled. I can't afford to do that above a certain price point.



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  • As a retail butcher it's totally true that new business models are a must. Branching out into older traditional models works well too - in all honesty when I travel I always stop in to the local butchers and I don't see many of them making their own small goods, smoked goods, pies, sausages, corned silverside / brisket etc - many of them are pre-made in a factory and have a label slapped on them for retail sale. Adding spices, sauces, rubs etc in addition to just selling meat works wonders as well.

    After the first wave of COVID, we set up an online store through our website, so customers can Click and Collect - yes, it adds to my workload having to update "in stock" or "out of stock" items, adding new items, changing prices etc but it works well.

    We've just come out of our biggest year and Christmas season ever, hitting record sales and customer levels, but we still look at what else we can do to boost the interest. We look at what our competitors are doing and either do it better, differently or find our own niche.

    I think the biggest favour Woolworths ever did for small town independent butchers was take away the in store box cutters and start bringing in gas package, robot cut meats. Yes, they still have the better buying power, but for freshness and quality, many still prefer their local butchers.

    Once you put my meat in your mouth, you're going to want to swallow.

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