Ringwood butcher can’t cut meat quick enough for panic buyers
Butchers have been inundated by frantic shoppers as people flock back to independent stores. But one has revealed he can’t employ enough skilled butchers to keep up with the demand.
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Butchers have been inundated by frantic shoppers as people flock back to independent stores as a result of the panic buying crisis.
As meat on supermarket shelves is stripped bare due to the coronavirus outbreak, Gary White, the owner of Ringwood’s BJ’s Meats, said he simply couldn’t employ enough people to keep up with demand.
He said a shortage of skilled butchers, who had left the industry when consumers turned to buying produce from major supermarkets instead, meant they couldn’t cut enough meat to satisfy the recent surge in customers.
“The challenge is people have left butcher shops and now they’ve come back all of a sudden and there’s no tradesmen,” Mr White said.
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“We can’t keep up the demand, physically, we can’t get it up to the people quick enough.
“We can’t call on anyone. There’s only four of us here, I couldn’t get another four people because they’ve all left the trade because it was diminishing.
“All of a sudden it’s overwhelming, it’s just come back tenfold.”
Mr White said the panic buying was “getting really ridiculous” and he’d never seen anything like it in his 43 years in the industry.
“It’s just like the supermarkets, they ran out of toilet paper, they couldn’t replenish quickly enough and they’re only boxes,” he said.
“We’re actually on site manufacturers, the animal is out there hanging on a rail – it’s got to be broken, boned, sliced, minced, made into sausages before it’s served, so it’s basically a factory on site and that’s the thing, we can’t just grab another box.
“We’ve been selling out completely, as much meat as I physically can cut every day.”
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Mr White said he had been closing the store at 5pm but working until midnight to try and get enough meat cut ready for the next day.
He is hoping the recent rush brought on by the coronavirus pandemic is the “reset” to spur on his industry.
“With hard times ahead it’s still cheaper to shop and cook at home but people don’t do it, they eat out,” he said.
“They come back and find it is cheaper to eat and cook at home, maybe we retain a percentage of that.”