For sale: Small butchery, big sausages
Mō kau is tucked away between two gaping gorges on Taranaki’s rocky west coast. The hidden town has a population of 400, and one of the country’s last village butcheries. If you want to buy meat elsewhere you need to drive for at least an hour.
This particular meat business is isolated, lucrative (it made a profit of $200,000 last year) and for sale.
Owners Graham and Gloria Putt want to retire.
They have put their home and business on the market for $450,000, a price tag that includes recipes for the couple’s ‘‘worldfamous’’ sausages.
Butcheries outside supermarkets are on the decline. Beef + Lamb chief executive Rod Slater says in their 1970s heyday, there were about 2000 member meat retailers. Now there are fewer than 300. He reckons Mo¯ kau is a rare gem.
Butcheries have struggled since the introduction of meat sections into supermarkets in the 1960s, but the Putts have increased their butchery profit by $20,000 a year for 18 of the 28 years they have owned it. Some customers make a twohour Sunday drive just to pick up some of what they claim are New Zealand’s best sausages.
Graham has had his share of international visitors compliment his sausages, too – one Swiss couple came to Mo¯ kau because they’d been told stories about the snarlers. And a friend heard a conversation on a Canadian radio station about the world’s best sausages coming from Mo¯ kau.
The most popular items are the low-fat sausages and the oldfashioned bacon.
Graham reckons making these items is an art.
They also sell a lot of whitebait during the season.
The pair have seen many changes through the years, including people’s taste in meat. They used to sell a whole beast easily, now it’s mainly steak, sausages and bacon.
They are kept occupied every day and occasionally have afterhours requests – after all, there’s a sign on the butchery door welcoming customers to come up to the house if the store is closed.
‘‘You’re more mates with them than they are clients,’’ Graham says.
According to Gloria, ‘‘they keep coming back and back and back’’.
They keep coming back and back and back.
Gloria Putt