…and butchers face chop too
INDEPENDENT butchers say they are ‘struggling’ to compete and might have no future if they fail to innovate and attract young people to the industry.
Ireland has lost 70% of its local butchers since 1990 with fewer than 700 remaining across the country compared with 2,300 back then, according to a recent study by That’s Farming.
John McGrath, who owns McGrath’s butchers in Galway, said a shortage of young people wanting to join the industry was the main threat to butchers. ‘I wish I knew a few young people who wanted to come into the industry or even one or two but there’s no one,’ he told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
‘The ones that can’t get younger staff will end up closing – no one will be able to take over from them.
‘I can see that happening very easily.’
Troy’s Butchers on Moore Street in Dublin benefits from its bustling location, but owner Stephen Troy warned independent butchers will have a limited shelf-life if they do not innovate. Troy’s main focus has turned to hampers of ham, turkey, beef and breakfast meat which sell for between
€85 and €140.
‘I think butchers need to come up with more ideas,’ Mr Troy said. ‘What we do with our hampers is needed to keep the customers.
‘We’re selling them in volume and we’re pretty screwed if we don’t sell them in volume.
We’re probably guaranteed to sell about 400 or 500 hampers this year and we do very well out of that. It’s a little marketing trick I suppose.’
Troy’s Butchers has won awards at the Best of Dublin ceremony and counts Mrs Brown’s Boys creator and comedian Brendan O’Carroll among its customers.
‘I’m very lucky,’ Mr Troy said. ‘I’m on the Moore Street market where there’s plenty of footfall which means we’re kind of guaranteed to sell the volume unlike a butcher on the outskirts.
‘My butchers probably would’ve failed if we were in a different location.’