Only 7,000 Butchers Left in the UK

Have your meat shopping and / or eating habits changed in the wake of the horse meat scandal?  It seems that many people have been returning to buying meat at the butcher after years of getting it as part of their supermarket shop.  Which is great news for the butchers of the UK whose numbers, according to this piece in The Telegraph have decreased from 22,000 in the mid nineties to fewer than 7,000 now.  That's an astonishing decline so as shocking as the horse meat scandal was, it's good to know that there's a silver lining.

And we're really lucky.  Even after the recent closure of one of our butchers on Toll Gavel, we still have 2 remaining - the one on Norwood and Ye Olde Pork Shoppe in Wednesday Market.  So far during our little and local month, we've been using the latter because it's no more than a minute's walk from our shop but next week, I do plan to pop in to the one on Norwood as well.

I have to say that Ye Olde Pork Shoppe is very jaunty looking and appealing from the outside.

But have to confess to be very slightly intimidated by butchers in general (rather than this one in particular).  It's my issue not theirs - a lack of confidence in my own knowledge, I think.  But that said, I've enjoyed my visits so far and have bought a whole chicken, chicken fillets, huge pork chops and some sausages.  All have been delicious.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the butcher happily joined the chicken for me.

And when I asked about the origins of the sausages, I discovered that they're made on the premises.  Can't get more local than that, I guess.  (Apologies for the slightly odd photo, I only remembered to get the camera out just as I was about to whizz them up into my pasta sauce mix).

Having done a bit more research on Maru Market's website, I now know that they smoke bacon and gammon in the shop themselves and that the majority of their stock comes from within a 30 mile radius.  All of the pork is free range and comes from prize winning Anna's Happy Trotters farm near Howden.  The lamb is sourced from Roos, near Withernsea and many of the chickens on sale are from a farm in the village of Seaton, near Hornsea.  The beef is sourced from a range of farms within Yorkshire.

Thanks John at Maru Market for all that helpful info - I haven't quite reached that level of chattiness with the butcher myself yet!  And if anyone reading this doesn't yet know about Maru Market, it's a brilliant service that lets you order groceries online from our local Beverley shops and have them delivered direct to your door.  At the moment, you can order meat, fish, fruit and veg, and tea and coffee.  We're hoping that John will do a guest post on the blog sometime soon.

Sorry, I digress.  Back to the butcher.  They also do cooked meats, sausage rolls, pies etc and they look pretty fine, although I can't say I've sampled them as yet.

If you're like me and a little apprehensive about going to the butcher, why not go anyway?  I reckon they'll be getting their fair share of people like me who don't know a ribeye from a porterhouse and hopefully, they'll be welcoming us all with open arms!

Image from Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.