[WinslowPorker]

we get charged £25 a pig including packing and sausages

[Pebbles]

Way too much! Feel we've been slightly ripped off!

The last butcher charged us 70p per kilo and £1.40 per kilo for bacon. Added extra for seasoning and casings for sausages = 4 pigs butchered in to 8 halves = £350!!! Our pigs weighed in at about 70kg each 

Going forward, as we're doing this as a business, it will give us much more of a return on our pigs to do the butchery ourselves. Anyone know of any good courses.....Andrew??? 

[Eve]

It doesn't sound that much over the top, £350 for 4 pigs inc bacon and sausages. Remember, if you're going to be selling to the public you'll need to comply with all the regulations, and that's lots of hassle.

 

[Pebbles]

Hi Eve

I know it doesn't sound that much but.....

had the butcher treated us like the full paying customers we were instead of an inconvenience

had he done what was asked of him and what we put in writing for his reference

had he done a good job instead of having wafer thin chops and doorstop thick ones packed side by side when a bit of care could have had everything more standardised

had he vacuum packed everything as promised instead of loosely wrapping it all on polystyrene trays and cling film which came off as he then stuffed everything roughly in 8 black bin bags....all non biodegradable materials which I asked to avoid

had he created our sausages with just meat and seasoning as asked instead of creating them solely with trimmings of fat and rusk (we then sacrificed the half pig we were planning to keep to allow the butcher to remake the sausages using that meat!)

had he completed everything in time instead of causing us to make three hour long round trips to collect it all in parts

had he not frozen everything - one of my main requests was that everything was fresh and not frozen

had he just for a moment remembered that we were customers with our own customers who are used to a high standard product.....instead he nearly ruined our reputation with a couple of regular customers which lead us to offer them 20% off their next half pig orders

the list goes on and on. Everything was discussed, agreed and accepted prior to the pigs being slaughtered. The butcher (and this is now the second one who has done this) simply ignored all our instructions and did his own thing. His fee pretty much left us with no profit, unhappy customers and me extremely sad for the animals we had reared.

At seven months of age our pigs have cost us £163 in total to rear. We sell them for £300 (£150 a side). If we continue to give butchers £87 per pig........well you do the maths, after slaughter fees and transport costs we'll be left with nothing.

Rules and regulations I can handle and I'm willing to learn. A seperate meat preparation room is in the plan for the house we're building so all going well butchers costs will be a thing of the past in around 10-12 months - my stress levels will be a lot lower and our customers will be happy again. Right now the butcher is the only person turning a profit 

[robert waddell]

hello pebbles   your butcher just might not be making as big a proffit as you think
first he has the licenced premises the insurance cover the equipment(sausage maker is in the region of £20000)
by your list it should have been a processing plant not a butcher (don't take this the wrong way)
with this being your second butcher that you have tried are they not telling you something(they don't want or need your business)
now again don't take this the wrong way  but good luck on fitting out a cutting plant the planning the certificates your own training with meat and hygiene certificates the equipment the rates you will need hundreds of pigs per year to break even insurance the list goes on and on
and if he has a reputation for excellent sausages he wont make yours the same he will see you as muscling in on his reputation

[Eve]

Oh no!! I can imagine you're not happy with that service!  

Friends of ours had a similar issue with the half pigs we delivered to the butcher of their choice - he wasn't really happy to do it and it was all a bit slap bang. Even though that wasn't our fault, we still felt awkward about it as he was being really negative all the time, too. And our pigs deserved better!
We're very pleased with the butcher we use ourselves (an hour's drive away!). If you're near Bucks, I can give you his details. Nothing vac-packed, though - apparently that doesn't do the meat any good? We drop off 2 pigs at a time.

We've had some bad experiences with town butchers, the one we use now is in a small village and probably used to butchering customers' own animals. Though of course that may be coincidence - the first butcher we tried was in a hamlet nearby, and when I popped in a week before slaughter to remind him we were coming, he told me he couldn't do it because of lack of space in his tiny shop - a week before slaughter, I was fuming!

But anyway, good luck with the butchering course! (And mind those fingers  )

[Pebbles]

Hi Lillian

Don't worry I haven't taken anything the 'wrong way'. You're quite protective of Mr Butcher, are you one yourself?

Our huge list of demands was actually an A4 sheet breaking down the 4 pigs in to 8 half pig orders - some of our customers wanted sausages, some didn't etc. At the bottom it reminded him that we didn't want the pigs skinned (they were killed at the butchers own abattoir......and they DID skin them!), that we didn't want them frozen and that we were happy to have them vacuum packed, which was their suggestion, not our request. My list above represents their failings not my 'demands'. It's been a learning curve and what I've learned most is that next time I'll be even more specific.

As well as the farm I run part of a global company in the UK and in these difficult economic times businesses (large or small) should be making more of an effort to meet the needs of the paying customer, going that extra mile to make sure they are satisfied and return again and again. Customer service forms a huge part of that and it doesn't cost the business a penny to provide it at a high level. Anyone with the arrogance to think that they can totally ignore the customers requirements, treat them badly and still expect them to happily hand over their hard earned money will find themselves going out of business pretty quickly.

I am totally in support of and promote buying local produce instead of the convenience of buying food of a lower standard which has travelled half way round the world  to line the pockets of the supermarket. We and others are trying to support smaller independent stores and sellers (including butchers). We are now at a stage where we are looking for a butcher to process a regular order - quite frankly they should be falling over themselves to get the business. We are customers with money to spend and if you truly think butchers can simply pick and choose their work while naively thinking that their regular clientele buying a couple of slices of tongue and some square slice will see them through this then I genuinely fear for you and their future (don't take that the wrong way). All businesses should be waking up and upping their game or they will be left behind while others succeed.

Hey what do I know, I'm just the customer 

[robert waddell]

No we are not butchers and certainly not protective of them.
You have to understand the process the pig goes through. If it was skinned it was to big to go in the tank (boiling water to remove the hairs not nice seeing bacon rind with hairs on it) each abbatoir differs on the size of tank they have, and some vets (meat inspectors)do not allow singeing.
You are to be commended on your customer satisfaction, thinking if only others had the same attitude. Unfortinately the world is not like that
there are butchers out there that fit your criteria it is just finding them.
You say you are a customer but you have asperations of being that butcher. I hope you are succesful, I really mean it
I hope you are in this venture for the long haul and not another one that has an airy fairy notion that they are going to corner a particular nich market and finds that the returns are just not there. We have seen so many of them in the past with the animals being the losers.
If there were fortunes to be made in pig keeping there would be thousands of pig keepers in Scotland  and not just in the region of 600

[OhLaLa]

For pigs: we pay £42, depends on the butcher too - have paid this with and without sausages (and some butchers do a better job than others with their cuts).

£1100? Yes, ouch! Don't use him again.

The moral of this story is put your requirements in writing and keep a copy (it might help you get what you asked for but it won't necessarily stop the price increasing).

 

[dyedinthewool]

Not that I have any pigs for slaughter, but I will at some stage have some lambs.  Trying to find a butcher will be nigh impossible here - the reaction I've had so far is - if I butcher your lamb for you to sell to 'your' customers, then they won't be buying from 'me'. I will be doing myself out of customers. Even when I said it would be for my/family consumption the reaction was the same - not at all helpful.

I can understand the reasoning to a certain degree so am not surprised that pebbles 'butcher' made a hash of it - he didn't want the job as 'pebbles' would be possible taking his prospective customers... Best go on a course and learn to do the butchering yourself - wish I could do that but a bit long in the tooth now and not enough strength in my hands.  My nearest abbattoir is an hour away - and I'm not sure I would get my own lamb carcass back either.

[robert waddell]

Lambs are easier than pigs to cut up and quicker. Your tags should still be in the ears when you collect them,
just been told by the wife you dont get the heads back and you are right you dont know if it is yours you get back unless you can go by size ie if it was all light lambs they were killing that day and yours were bigger or the other way about. The wife here, you get a plastic label in the leg with the weight and your name on it. It takes me about an hour to do 3 lambs.

[littlemisspiggy!]

ive just booked our 1st pigs in and our abb charges £15 +vat for kill and £10 =vat for buchering..so £30 per pig in total incl vat,i was chuffed with that! £120 for 4 pigs butchered!cant wait!

[seldomseen]

Over here you have to let him have a piece of meat (the best bit) but its not a butcher its the local guy who does not mind killing an animal, I have booked a friend who was a game keeper (before he retired) for the slaughter of my bucks, gonna have to wait a couple of months befroe I need him lol, all he wants is a BBQ with some of the meat we get.