Pearce’s Meat Barn: Coopers Plains butcher to close at end of month
The second-generation owner of a beloved butcher shop on Brisbane’s southside has announced his shop will close at the end of the month.
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The owner of a butcher shop on Brisbane’s southside which has been in operation for some 70 years says this month will be his last, citing the suffocating pincer of exorbitant meat and energy prices.
Pearce’s Meat Barn owner Ian Pearce, a second-generation butcher whose parents Ken and Laurel also owned the shop, was devastated at having his hand forced.
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“I feel like I’ve failed, but at the end of the day, it’s really a business decision,” Mr Pearce said.
Mr Pearce, who also owns Bellas Meat Market at Eight Mile Plains and Waterford Discount Meats at Waterford West, said he has burned through about half a million of his own money trying to juggle three businesses in a very competitive, low-margin industry.
Two years ago, he was forced to sell his beloved cattle property at Moogerah, which ran about 300 head, “just to keep my businesses”.
“I am probably paying a thousand dollars a week here (at Coopers Plains) in power,” Mr Pearce said.
Add to that the steepling price of sourcing meat, which Mr Pearce estimated has gone up by about 30 per cent in the last few years as the drought bites, and his shop had become uneconomical.
Mr Pearce said his final hail-Mary has been to write to his landlord asking for a 25 per cent rent reduction, but he is yet to hear back and believes the signs are not good.
The original butcher shop on Boundary St Coopers Plains was opened about 70 years ago by a firm known as Harper Bros, Mr Pearce said.
They operated for many years before folding and the shop was vacant for a time before being reopened by Mr Pearce’s parents as Pearce & Sons Bulk Meats – Ian was one of the sons.
In the early 2000s, the Pearces sold to Bluegum and the shop was rebranded Bluegum Quality Meats.
Four years ago, Bluegum sold back to Ian, bringing the shop back into the family – almost certainly for the last time.
Mr Pearce said one of the things he will miss most is having ovens to cook and smoke his own meats – neither his Eight Mile Plains nor his Waterford West butcher shops have the space for cooking equipment.
“We have people coming back year on year at Christmas time for our smoked hams,” he lamented.