Unfortunately the number of quality butcher shops seems to be shrinking in the UK even in this current climate of wall to wall cooking TV shows.

Now I’m not talking about the type of butchers where most of its meats are straight out of the freezer. I’m talking about butcher’s who smoke their own bacon, make their own sausages, pork pies, faggots etc and often have won awards for their products. Quality butchers often source much of their meat locally, which is good for the local economy, cleaner for the environment because of the fewer miles driven.

If I’m honest there are times when I buy my meat from one of my local butchers and times when due to my busy lifestyle I do a one-stop shop at the local supermarket. Generally speaking when you buy your meat from a supermarket the prices may be lower but so is the quality.

So what else can you hope to get if you buy your meat from your local butcher?
Free advice on how to cook what you are buying plus information about where the meat came from. Suggestions on trying new cuts or dishes you have never tried before and hopefully a better quality.

I like to pose a few questions to the non-vegetarian people that visit my site.

1.) Do you have a favourite butcher shop you use or do you buy all of your meat from a supermarket?

2.) Has a traditional butcher shop become irrelevant?

3.) Do you ever seek advice from your local butcher, on what to cook and how to cook it?

4.) If you don’t currently use a butcher what would tempt you to try?

5.) Do the short traditional opening hours of UK butcher shops prevent you from using them?

As the words of the song go.. “Dont it always seem to go that you dont know what you’ve got till its gone”…

Historically the short operating time of butchers shops was because of the lack of refridgeration. Around 1900 most butchers shops had open fronts. Marble slabs were place in the display windows; these were washed down at the end of the day. Meat storeage in butchers was cooled by blocks of ice, before the invention of refrideraters. The floors were covered in sawdust and salt was generally used for cleaning.

Meat was handled in a more robust way at retail and wholesale levels. Most people would now be horrified at the level of hygene, but the view was that all meat would be washed and cooked thoroughly, so the risk of contamination was small.

The USA doesn’t have many butchers shops because almost all meat is bought from large supermarkets. Quite clearly this could be the same in the UK in the not too distant future.

When I lived in America for almost 14 years I never saw leg of pork joints for roasting because, all legs were made into ham. It was rare to see any other offal other than liver and game was practically unheard of. The choices on the meat counters were fairly static, no shanks of lamb, very little seasonal differences except for certain obvious holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Not that butchers even good ones are all perfect. I personally find it annoying that even if the butcher’s shop closes at say 4.30pm or even 5pm some butchers will long before hand empty their window displays and clean down. How can I be tempted into making a purchase when there is nothing on display? In this highly visual information age butchers need to check out the supermarkets and fight back with imaginative and informative displays. After all supermarkets are constantly looking for ways to personalize there inpersonal products. Things like gourmet sausages and more recently putting the photos of the farmers who raise and supply the meat on the packaging. Now I’m not about to suggest that butchers should do the same because the neither have the time nor the money but they could look for ways to interact with their customers more. Perhaps do some tastings/sampling to let the people try before they buy, maybe even combine with other food and drink retailers to help engineer other food/business opportunities such as a food and wine tasting or even organize a food demonstration as an add on to an exsisting event or festival….in other words do things that supermarkets can’t or wont do to increase business and the locals awareness of the quality of the butcher. I also think we need to convince TV chefs to hilight the importance of quality butcher's on our high streets.