What does it take to become a butcher

07/03/2024

Feature story on family run business, Portchester Butchers

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:14 I'm David Smith and I've been here for a year and a bit now, just over 12 months.

00:20 I obviously opened the shop with my son Jacob and my older son James is now working in manufacturing sausages for me.

00:28 And I've been in the trade all my life, left school, sassy boy, and that's back in the mid-70s and been in it ever since.

00:36 I've been around a bit because I've had butchers in Arundel and I went to Spain and had butchers in Spain.

00:41 I've been back here, I've worked for other butchers all over the region.

00:46 So I ended up in Portchester, which is obviously where I am now.

00:49 I originally had a shop in Arundel, bought it from a guy called Ted Joyce and renamed the shop Arundel Butchers

00:56 because what it was, where it is, was the obvious thing to do.

00:59 So Arundel Butchers, done the same thing here, it's called Portchester Butchers.

01:03 Keep it simple and where it is, exactly.

01:06 So, I've had some experience in the trade as well, so I know everything you can think of when it comes to butchering really.

01:13 So does it differ from how it is in Spain to how it is here?

01:18 In Spain it was wonderfully warm, a lot more social life, but it was mainly wholesale catering.

01:25 We did a lot of English bars and cafeterias, stuff like that.

01:28 We also supplied and manufactured sausages for supermarkets over there, English supermarkets, little corn store type places.

01:35 So we had a big range, we went up to Alicante and all the way down to Cartagena and we did a fair bit at the time.

01:43 But then recession came and I was kind of like struck by everybody that was British bars etc. packed up to be honest.

01:51 And a lot of it went down, we had to come back home really.

01:55 So hence I came back.

01:57 Was it Portchester that you first came back to?

02:00 No, I came back to my area, I was born on Hayden Island and I've lived in this area all my life.

02:06 So I came back to where I knew.

02:08 And I worked, from when I came back I literally turned up with £20 in my pocket when I arrived back at the airport.

02:14 Literally, my mate from the Arundel Butchers picked me up and took me to Arundel and I worked for him for a few months.

02:19 And then I worked for other butchers as a freelance butcher.

02:23 I mean, you can probably name several loads in the Hampshire area I've worked for.

02:28 So I've got a lot of experience, picked up a lot of tips and ideas.

02:32 And obviously, eventually I saw this shop come up in Portchester and I thought this is brilliant, absolutely brilliant shop, potential.

02:39 And it's been better than I thought.

02:41 To be truthful, yeah it's been better than I thought it would be.

02:44 But I knew it would be good, it has been very good.

02:47 What is it that you need to be a butcher?

02:51 Prepare to work 60 hours a week minimum, that's a part-time week really.

02:56 If you're doing less than 60 you're not working hard enough.

02:59 And basically you've got to give your life and soul to it, constantly.

03:04 My wife's got used to it over the decades, she doesn't see much of me from one end of the day to the other.

03:09 It is hard, it's very hard but very rewarding, it is good.

03:12 And it's a skill that not many have now.

03:15 Obviously we do everything from boning out the beef and so on and so forth, making the sausages and making the baguettes.

03:22 We sell loads of baguettes and everything you can think of in between.

03:26 As I say, I start at about 5.30 in the morning, we get the windows in, displays in, any orders that have got to be done.

03:32 Basically that's a day start.

03:35 And it depends on the day how busy we are, who's coming in.

03:39 It's boning out meat to be done, the sausages to be produced.

03:42 And as I say we do a lot of oven-ready meals like this and here, which Jacob tends to take care of.

03:48 Well he does all of it really, quite honestly, but we help him with that.

03:53 So that's a day, but we have to be here all day because the shop's open, obviously.

03:58 If we decide I've done it all now, we're going home, that'll be it.

04:02 So we have to be open, doors open and we're here.

04:05 And that's till 4.30 in the afternoon.

04:08 We don't get much chance for a break, there's never a refined time for it.

04:11 But it is a hard job, but it's rewarding.

04:15 I remember when I first started, and this is back in the 70s, my old boss says to me,

04:21 "All these old people now, they're all dying off and there'll be nobody left who's going to go to a butcher's shop."

04:25 It hasn't happened. There's always a market there, people come through.

04:29 And so far there's never been a problem getting trade.

04:33 There's been people out there, there's only a few, but in an area like this you only need a few to make it worthwhile.

04:39 You don't get everybody, you can't compete with Astors and so on.

04:42 They are bigger, better from the point of view of the pricing, they can get things in volume, I can't buy.

04:48 So I find it a struggle to beat them on that, but what we'll beat them hands down every single time is on quality.

04:53 And that's it. The quality and the service, you can never get it in a supermarket.

04:57 Most often you go in a supermarket and you ask somebody what meat is what, they wouldn't have a clue.

05:02 Even the butchers that are on the counters don't really know, unless it's labelled right.

05:06 So we've got that, and there's going to be a market for that forever I think, well at least for my lifetime anyway.

05:12 And I think it's a niche market, but it's good.

05:18 I'm David Smith, I'm the chef's son.

05:21 My role is pretty much to keep all the oven ready meals up to scratch.

05:26 We can go in, prep them all, make new ones, provide new ideas.

05:30 Serve, keep people happy.

05:33 And as I say, my wife, she is in charge of all the whole social media.

05:38 She's the manager of the whole marketing background.

05:42 So I don't have a clue what I'm doing there.

05:45 So my main goal is to do all this kind of stuff, keep ideas fresh on what to do, what to make.

05:53 Make my own stuff up, my own recipes, and keep all that counter going.

06:01 Yeah.

06:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]

What does it take to become a butcher

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