Butchers to look out for

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The Meat Crusade Heads to Malton Food Festival on the 18th -19th May

Posted on: May 07 2013

Food traceability has never been higher on the agenda of shoppers.
Disillusioned supermarket customers who have lost confidence in the origins of what they are being sold over the counter are returning to local butchers in their droves.

But with the number of UK butchers plunging from over 20,000 to 6,000 in 30 years, there is much work to be done to revive and halt the decline of the high street butcher.

The Meat Crusade, a campaign which aims to save the high street butcher by putting quality butchers’ meat back on dinner tables, is coming to Malton Food Festival on the 18-19th of May. The campaign is led by long standing campaigner for the farming industry John Penny & Sons, a meat wholesaler which supplies quality butchers’ shops across Yorkshire.

John Penny says; “A visit to your butcher is all about trust. People trust butchers to provide the best quality meat that is traceable to respected farms and deliver it with unrivalled service & skill. A trained butcher can say exactly where his meat comes from. He can advise about various cuts, cooking methods and what to serve with them.”

“We’re bringing the Meat Crusade to Malton Food Festival to remind people to shop local every day. Consumers have a right to know exactly what is in the food they are eating and a local butcher can guarantee their meat is traceable to the exact farm it came from, at good value, ensuring the farmer and the customer gets a fair price.

One supporter of the Meat Crusade is food writer and broadcaster Jay Rayner, who will be appearing at the festival giving a talk on his forthcoming book “A Greedy Man in a Hungry World”.

Rayner spent 2 days working at John Penny & Sons to experience and understand the importance of rearing meat from farm to abattoir and writes about his experiences in his new book due to be released 23 May 2013.

“Now, more than ever, we need to know where our meat is coming from, and your local butcher is best placed to give you that vital information. There is no substitute for buying your meat from the people who sourced it. They are the ones who know how it was raised, how it was slaughtered and how best to cook it. If we lose our local butchers we lose an irreplaceable part of the food chain,” says Jay Rayner.

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Rosemary Shrager

Rosemary Shrager, talented TV chef and cookery school teacher, is renowned for her role on reality TV show, Ladette to Lady. Rosemary has worked for Pierre Koffman at the famous Tante Claire restaurant in London and also for super chef Jean-Christophe Novelli.

Rosemary’s TV career began with series Rosemary – Castle Cook, followed by Rosemary on the Road, both for Channel 5. She is now a familiar face on ITV, following up her Rosemary Shrager's School For Cooks series with regular appearances on The Alan Titchmarsh Show.

It is so important to support butchers, if we do not then they will go and then we really will miss them. These people know where all their food has come from, generally sourcing everything from the local area’s farmers. Support for your butcher is support for the wider farming community.

Brian Turner

A popular face on our TV screens, Yorkshire-born Brian’s career started in less glamorous circumstances - cooking breakfasts at his dad's transport café.

Your local butcher really cares about the meat he sells and the people he sells to. He deserves your support- let’s not lose him now.

Jay Rayner

The award winning Observer Food Critic and One show journalist.

Jay currently chairs the new Radio 4 food panel show, The Kitchen Cabinet, having recently appeared as judge on Masterchef and The Great British Waste Menu, and hosted Channel 4's magazine show Food: What Goes in your Basket?

Now, more than ever, we need to know where our meat is coming from, and your local butcher is best placed to give you that vital information. There is no substitute for buying your meat from the people who sourced it. They are the ones who know how it was raised, how it was slaughtered and how best to cook it. If we lose our local butchers we lose an irreplaceable part of the food chain.

Joanna Blythman

Joanna Blythman is Britain’s leading investigative food journalist and an influential commentator on the British food chain. She has won four Glenfiddich awards for her writing, including a Glenfiddich Special Award for her first book, The Food We Eat, a Caroline Walker Media Award for Improving the Nation’s Health by Means of Good Food, and a Guild of Food Writers Award for The Food We Eat.

We need to cherish the excellent traditional butchers who have kept going valiantly in the teeth of the supermarket takeover of our food chain. As the Meat Crusade puts it, if one in 10 of us returned to our local butcher that would be make a real difference. And if one in five of us did so, even once a week, it could start a revolution.

Tom Parker Bowles

Tom is a food writer and broadcaster with a weekly column in The Mail on Sunday and is Food Editor at Esquire magazine.
His books include E Is For Eating – An Alphabet of Greed, The Year of Eating Dangerously and Full English; A Journey Through the British and Their Food. He also co-presented Market Kitchen on Good Food Channel and presented LBC Radio's Food and Drink Programme.

The steady loss of our local butchers is cause for serious alarm. Just 2 months back my favourite butcher, Kingsland and Son, fell victim to a fierce rent hike and was forced to move out. The whole area is still reeling from the loss. Because butchery is both art and science. Not just in the physical act of separating different cuts from a carcass, but the wealth of knowledge any serious butcher has; where the meat comes from, how long the beef was hung, what cuts are better suited to braising than roasting. Support your local butchers. For the sake of the community, and your taste buds too.