Buying from a butcher

milkydrink

thriftlady wrote: »

I often can't visualise how much the meat I want will cost in the butcher, so I just say 'how much will one of those chops cost me ?'. The butcher weighs it and tells me, then I can decide how many to buy (or not) You can do this with any kind of meat from roasts to stewing meat. Don't ever be embarrassed to refuse meat. You are the customer and you're the one with the money. Last time I looked at chops in the supermarket they came packaged in 4s -not very economical for my family of 5

I went in my local village butchers today. He was doing 5lb of steak mince for £8.99.
Normally I buy those (nearly) half a kilo packs of mince for about £2.30 (ish) in the supermarket.
Now I think 5lbs is about 5 of those, so I did save a little & it was nice mince:T

Ytaya

kimevans wrote: »

I went in my local village butchers today. He was doing 5lb of steak mince for £8.99.
Normally I buy those (nearly) half a kilo packs of mince for about £2.30 (ish) in the supermarket.
Now I think 5lbs is about 5 of those, so I did save a little & it was nice mince:T

You are correct! 'Nearly half a kilo' is 1lb. More accurately, 1lb = 454 grams.

jinty271

I work in a butchers shop.

We are constantly stuggling, due to big supermarkets nearby, so it is great to hear of people veering back towards supporting their local butcher.

The good points, as I see it:

You can ask for cooking advice, and if you tell the butcher what you are making, he will give you the appropriate cut, and times etc.
The meat is not usually cleverly lit, as in a supermarket...what you see is usually what you get. It can also be very mse! If you want a sausage and bacon sandwich, you can go in and buy 1 sausage, 1 slice of bacon etc.
A lot of our old ladies only need 1 chop, and would waste any extra, if bought prepacked.

Also, small independents are more rigourously checked by environmental health...we stick to very strict guidlines.

If anyone needs any info, re what meat to buy, how to get the best for less, anything at all to do with buying from your butcher, please feel free to PM me.

HTH

BrandNewDay

jinty271 wrote: »

I work in a butchers shop.

We are constantly stuggling, due to big supermarkets nearby, so it is great to hear of people veering back towards supporting their local butcher.

The good points, as I see it:

You can ask for cooking advice, and if you tell the butcher what you are making, he will give you the appropriate cut, and times etc.
The meat is not usually cleverly lit, as in a supermarket...what you see is usually what you get. It can also be very mse! If you want a sausage and bacon sandwich, you can go in and buy 1 sausage, 1 slice of bacon etc.
A lot of our old ladies only need 1 chop, and would waste any extra, if bought prepacked.

Also, small independents are more rigourously checked by environmental health...we stick to very strict guidlines.

If anyone needs any info, re what meat to buy, how to get the best for less, anything at all to do with buying from your butcher, please feel free to PM me.

HTH

Please, could you post more info? Why take it to PM's? I'd love to see it answered here. Maybe you could start a thread called "Butcher to answer your MSE Meat Questions?" That would be AWESOME!

My first question is: What do you think of the deals offered by the Internet Site someone posted above? I live in a remote rural area and I would like an alternative to trying to stock up on my monthly trip to Tesco or Asda.

jinty271

Hi there, yes, by all means, feel free to ask on here, I will do my best to answer!! But perhaps , you could pm to say there was a question for me??

I should stress, I am not an actual butcher, but I have worked there for many years, and have the knowledge, just not all the skills in cutting/boning, however I am fairly clued up on the actual products. Also, anything I dont know, I will be sure to find out for you !!

jinty271

""My first question is: What do you think of the deals offered by the Internet Site someone posted above? I live in a remote rural area and I would like an alternative to trying to stock up on my monthly trip to Tesco or Asda.""


I havent used this service, so I wouldnt like to say for definate. Certainly , the lady who posted seemed very impressed.
However, a couple of points to make.

The whole point of going into your local butcher, is to build up a relationship with him, find out where the product came from, how it has been stored, even ..What is especially nice this week?? ( spring lamb, while you are asking!!)

Its the face to face contact, and also , the product history ( which all needs to be recorded..date slaughtered, farm I.D. etc) which makes all the difference.

However, as you are from a very rural area, and do your shopping online, I would certainly say it might be worth trying, but only as an alternative to supermarket meat.

I would be concerened about how the meat is handled between order processing to delivery . I would also be wondering, if internet businesses have little idea from one day to the next how many people would be ordering, how can they excercise adequate stock control??Do they have vast quantities, waiting to be sold, and what happens to it if it isnt?? Has it been previously frozen??? We know, day by day, obviously with some exceptions,which customers will be coming in, and for what products. Therefore, we order in accordingly.

Also, I have been looking back over previous posts and I should draw your attention to one more point. It is a LEGAL requirement, since the Bse crisis, for all meat vendors, to clearly display the provenance of their product. (We have a big whiteboard, as you cant label fresh, loose meat!)

This includes : Farm ID,age of animal, date slaughtered, slaughter plant number, use by date.

This allows us to build up a "passport" for every product, from its birth to the time it leaves our hands.


Hope this helps

BrandNewDay

jinty271 wrote: »

Hi there, yes, by all means, feel free to ask on here, I will do my best to answer!! But perhaps , you could pm to say there was a question for me??

I should stress, I am not an actual butcher, but I have worked there for many years, and have the knowledge, just not all the skills in cutting/boning, however I am fairly clued up on the actual products. Also, anything I dont know, I will be sure to find out for you !!

Thanks!

OK, here's a question... how do you think a butcher would feel about being asked "Could you keep an eye out for bargains and call me and I'll buy in bulk?" Like, I figure there ought to be times when beef is cheap. There may be a glut and that might be a good time to buy a few kilos of mince. Do you know what I mean? What if I told a butcher, "I'd be interested in stocking up on mince if it can be gotten for £5 a kilo" (or some other price that is in line with Tesco when they have mince on sale.) Would that offend the butcher, or would they think that was just being frugal?

jinty271

I can only speak for my shop, but we get this quite regularly.

If you are a regular customer, then if you were looking to purchase a bulk buy, there would certainly be a discount. Our steak mince is £4.65 per kilo, but for large amounts, you would probably get it around £4.00 to £4.20.

Also, if you speak to your butcher, you should say to him, the next time he placing his order to his wholesaler/farmer/market, if he found anything he felt was a good buy, would he be good enough to inform you.

We do this for a number of customers, mostly those who are in the shop a couple of times a week.

I dont think he would ring you to inform you, he wants you in the shop!! But, at the end of the day, he is a businessman, and he wants your custom, so if he can find a way to get you to buy more, albeit at a bargain price, he is still going to make some money, and perhaps gain your loyalty at the same time!!

saverstacey

I tried freshmeat2u.co.uk and TBH didn't think much of it. Have recently been very impressed with broadstripebutchers.co.uk. Can't post it here, but there is a code for 40% off and free delivery at the moment (think I found it on hotdeals forum).

buxtonrabbitgreen

Bexstars wrote: »

wow thanks everyone

There is a butchers about 20 min walk away from us but have never been in and was worried about going in and what sort of questions to be asking and what things to look for. I didnt want to go in and the butcher think I was thick or something lol

I think I will be brave and go in tomorow, might start with something easy and ask for chicken breasts, unless you need to tell them how much weight of those you want, in that case im !!!!!!ed!

If you don't want them to think you are thick don't do what I did when I was firs t married 35 years ago. I bought a half a sheep for the new freezer and then went back to complain because I only got one leg lol