Bacon and smallgoods are a big deal
Grant Hurley specialises in bacon – making it and saving other people’s. Many visitors to Pa¯ tea will meet him as the quietly-spoken butcher who sells old-style dry cured bacon and specialty smallgoods.
Some, however, will come across him in his role as Pa¯ tea’s chief fire officer, leading the crews at emergencies ranging from car crashes to house fires and floods.
Hurley has been doing both roles for about the same length of time.
‘‘I’ve been doing it [firefighting] for 30 years, nearly as long as I’ve been a butcher. I’ve been the chief fire officer for 12 years.’’
He grew up at Hurleyville and took up butchery after finishing at Pa¯ tea High School, and a couple of years later joined the volunteer fire brigade.
‘‘I’ve been butchering all my life, really. A job came up at the old freezing works butchery shop and I was there until it closed. Then I had a year off and came in here and I’ve been here ever since,’’ he said.
‘‘I got talked into it [joining the fire brigade] really but it was a good chance to do something for the community and give something back.’’
When asked how he manages to juggle both roles he said it just seemed to happen.
‘‘Sometimes you can be away for 10 minutes or two hours. You just don’t know. I’ve just got good staff.’’
Over the years, the support of other brigade members had helped him deal with the sometimes traumatic work.
The recent crash in Waverley where seven people died was the hardest emergency he had been called out to, he said.
‘‘After that we had a really good debrief and a chat, we all get along really well.
‘‘There’s a good camaraderie and we’re all pretty close.’’
In between callouts, he’s busy making bacon that draws customers from all corners of the world.
‘‘We don’t solely rely on Pa¯ tea customers at all, a lot of my customers travelling or passing through are regulars,’’ he said.
‘‘Motorhome season starts up shortly so we get people come off the ferry and we’re the first butcher they’ve seen, those types of people prefer to go to butchers not supermarkets. ‘‘They like to buy local food.’’ His butchery is the only independent butchery on the main road between Stratford and Levin, a 160km stretch of State Highway Three.
Where many small butcher shops up and down the country have closed, due to competition from supermarkets, Hurley’s is busier than ever.
‘‘The main highway is what keeps us going. If it wasn’t then we wouldn’t be here,’’ he said.
Hurley sells between 100 to
200 kilograms of bacon a week from the small shop on the southern end of Pa¯ tea.
‘‘Some people come in and buy 10 packets, others will buy
10kg,’’ he said.
‘‘People say they love the taste of it and it’s not full of water.’’
Hurley has three types of bacon available, two dry cured and another done in brine.
While he wouldn’t reveal all his secrets he said freshness was key. ‘‘It’s gotta be fresh, fresh brine and just simple, I can’t tell you too much.
‘‘It’s the smoking and timing and the temperatures.’’
He’s also particular about the pork he uses to create the famous Hurley bacon.
‘‘Eighty per cent of the bacon and ham sold here is not from NZ. I was offered pork from Spain last week, some comes from Estonia and some from Australia,’’ he said.
‘‘Not a lot of people know that 60 per cent of all of the pork sold in New Zealand is not from here.
‘‘I just won’t sell it, I only sell NZ pork.’’
The other meat in the shop he also sources locally.
Hurley said the bacon was by far the biggest seller, but pork bones were popular as well.
‘‘The smoker here goes pretty much five days a week with either bacon or bones,’’ he said.
‘‘I usually run out at Christmas time even though I try and double the amount we make, we just can’t keep up with demand.’’
Hurley, however, much prefers a juicy chunk of porterhouse steak to bacon after making it all day.
‘‘It’s pretty hard to beat. Put it in a hot pan, can’t beat it.’’
His favourite part of the job is the people he meets, and seeing empty cabinets at the end of the day.
‘‘Sometimes we can have up to 100 customers come in on any given day,’’ he said.
And once the bacon is sold and the firefighting gear stowed, he also has a farm ‘with a few acres’ to run near Ka¯ karamea.
‘‘We rear calves and beef cattle. It keeps me busy.’’
‘‘The smoker here goes pretty much five days a week with either bacon or bones.’’
Grant Hurley