Dundee butcher launches collection centre to cope with Christmas rush

At Christmas, the retail industry experiences a sharp increase in footfall, and one particularly busy sector is butchers as customers flock there to stock up on their favourite meat products.

This year, with the uncertainty of the coronavirus outbreak, businesses are taking extra precautions, including one innovative butcher, Scott Brothers Butchers in Dundee.

Each year, Scott Brothers experiences a 300% boom in sales during the runup to Christmas and, if current sales patterns at the Dundonian butchery are anything to go by, this is still expected this year despite the ongoing pandemic.

In fact, because the butcher – which has three branches across the city – has experienced a particularly successful few months, it could even see sales rise beyond 300%!

With this in mind, Scott Brothers have taken the decision to launch a dedicated collection centre, just a mile away from its shop in Strathmartine Road, in what is thought to be the first of its kind in Scotland.

It’s where a ‘click and collect’ will be in operation, maintaining customer safety at the busiest time of the year and allaying any fears over social distancing.

Scott Jarron, owner of Scott Brothers explained: “We get an awful lot of people visiting us at special occasions which means we get an incredible amount of orders at Christmas, everybody’s biggest special occasion. It’s fantastic but it means our shops can get overrun for collections.

“Last year some people were waiting for an hour, and that was not because we were slow or unorganised, it was just because we were so busy.

“Considering what might happen this year – and in a bid to take any stress away from our customers – we will be operating a collection centre off-site. I am not saying there won’t be a queue of people in their cars, but it will be a much safer environment.

“It will be a far better experience for the customer.

“We appreciate this Christmas will be slightly different, but once they come to our collection centre, I think they will see what a slick process it is.

“If this is a success, we will operate the collection centre every year.”

The new collection centre, which will fully stocked with customers’ orders in refrigerated facilities and has plenty parking spaces, will be located behind Camperdown Park in Smeaton Road, Gourdie Industrial Estate.

This year, to further cope with the anticipated demand, Scott Brothers has also increased its home delivery service to include both afternoon and evening drop-offs.

Scott added: “If you cannot get to our collection point, let us come to you.”

December is the butchers’ busiest month of the year – and it has been for the past 85 years the family business has been operating for. At this time, Scott and his staff notice a significant increase in sales – by around 10% every day throughout December then, during the 22nd, 23rd and 24th, sales rise by a staggering 300% while customer numbers increase by 100%!

“We don’t want to put people off coming to the butchers but it’s not just about Scott Brothers, it’s about supporting your local economy – we want to build people’s confidence in using a butcher or other small, local businesses. As soon as people get to know us and have conversations with our staff, a relationship is established and that is pretty hard to break,” Scott added.

*If you would like to take advantage of the ‘click and collect’ service at Scott Brothers this Christmas, you can simply order your favourite meat products online at www.scottbrothersbutchers.co.uk before driving to pick it up at the company’s new collection centre in Gourdie Industrial Estate.