Brighton and Hove butchers pay rising meat cost

5:30pm Saturday 17th November 2012 in News By Neil Vowles

Butcher Brian Archer Butcher Brian Archer

Benevolent butchers are proving they are full of festive spirit by taking a smaller cut of profits from their Christmas turkeys.

Traders in Brighton and Hove are giving a leg up to shoppers this year by absorbing the rising costs of suppliers and not passing them on to customers.

The cost of turkeys from suppliers is increasing as breeders battle to overcome the 30% rise in animal feed prices this year.

Butchers, who started receiving enquiries for Christmas turkeys in June, said they didn’t want to push up prices for struggling families.

Brian Archer, from Archer’s Butchers in Islingword Road said he had taken nearly all his orders for Christmas turkeys with most regulars putting in their orders in the last two to three weeks.

Prices the same

He added: “We have kept our prices the same as last year and absorbed the increase from our suppliers ourselves.

“You can get a Lidl four bird roast for £9.99.

A lot of people don’t understand that we are very different to those supermarkets.”

Paul Williams from Brampton’s in St George’s Road said that prices would remain the same at £11.90 a kilo despite costs from their suppliers increasing by 6%.

He said rising feed prices, which account for more than half of poultry farmer’s costs, were increasing at a weekly rate of £3 a tonne.

He added: “Christmas is the most important meal of the year and if either myself or the farmer get it wrong, we ruin everybody’s day.

“In the current climate, we knowthere is only so much a customer can spend on a turkey.”

A butcher at Canham and Sons in Church Road, Brighton said orders pick up next month when the firm can expect up to 60 orders a day.

The shop, which will sell about 1,000 turkeys this year, has increased its prices at just above inflation.

He said: “Everybody who produces meat is struggling to survive at the moment. They have to put up their prices to make ends meet but are concerned about a backlash from the public.”

Comments(22)

Rocker says...
5:50pm Sat 17 Nov 12

Twelve quid a kilo is ridiculous. I expect a juicy chicken to be on my table again,better value.

Good joke about butchers being generous. Never have been,never will be.

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nosolution says...
7:22pm Sat 17 Nov 12

Butchers don't help themselves when they buy in exactly the same chucks and turkeys as the supermarkets and charge 3X the price.We,the public,are not a charity for a shops benefit.Butchers main strengths are sourcing top quality specialised meats like South downs lamb..

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davyboy says...
7:50pm Sat 17 Nov 12

a turkey is a turkey, regardless of where you get it from, so why pay nearly £12/kilo, when a frozen one is just as good. we are just getting a turkey crown this year, as so much gets wasted off a whole bird. every year you see queues outside canhams in hove, and i really can't see the attraction of it.

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HJarrs says...
8:34pm Sat 17 Nov 12

Some of you are clearly not very discerning when it comes to your meat. I was fortunate to come across Archer's Butchers some years ago and now go out of my way to buy there as I got fed up with adulterated supermarket meat, which often seemed to be more full of water than anything else.
It is nice to go somewhere where the owner has such pride in the product and generally can tell you where the meat (mostly from Sussex farms) comes from.

Is it more expensive than a supermartket? They don't sell really cheap stuff, but in my experience for comparative quality and cut of meat Archer's are either cheaper than supermarkets or often you can't get the quality.

Also, some butchers may sell unpopular but good cuts at cheap prices - go and ask.

I am happy to support our local traders and farmers.

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Jetsamandflotsam says...
9:53pm Sat 17 Nov 12

Brian and Carol Archer....
True local legends

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AngelicDevil says...
10:29pm Sat 17 Nov 12

@DavyBoy:

Have you never considered using the leftovers instead of binning it?!

You can get days worth of sandwiches, pasta bakes, pies etc from the meat and use the carcass to make delicious stock.

I'll be supporting my local butcher. The meat is superb quality and works out cheaper than the supermarkets.

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worthingite says...
12:28am Sun 18 Nov 12

If a butcher can pass on some crap to the customer they will,just mix it in with the other stuff.

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pithound says...
1:30am Sun 18 Nov 12

Not keen on dry turkey meat. This year me and two mates have chipped in £15 each for a whole boneless 1.5kg Rib of Brazilian beef online from a butcher in Smithfield, with free postage. Go lovely with roast potatoes, horseradish, red cabbage. Left overs will keep us going for days.

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Hove Actually says...
7:51am Sun 18 Nov 12

HJarrs wrote:
Some of you are clearly not very discerning when it comes to your meat. I was fortunate to come across Archer's Butchers some years ago and now go out of my way to buy there as I got fed up with adulterated supermarket meat, which often seemed to be more full of water than anything else. It is nice to go somewhere where the owner has such pride in the product and generally can tell you where the meat (mostly from Sussex farms) comes from. Is it more expensive than a supermartket? They don't sell really cheap stuff, but in my experience for comparative quality and cut of meat Archer's are either cheaper than supermarkets or often you can't get the quality. Also, some butchers may sell unpopular but good cuts at cheap prices - go and ask. I am happy to support our local traders and farmers.
Is your name Archer?

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Hove Actually says...
7:55am Sun 18 Nov 12

My son works in London and pops down to Smithfield, the cost is cheaper than a supermarket and the quality is better than a Butchers. Amazing packs of bacon and sausages make it worth while if you can get there

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Helen Ariel says...
7:55am Sun 18 Nov 12

You get what you pay for. Yes a free range organic turkey will be expensive but will have had a decent life and no rubbish pumped into it. My christmas turkey is never dry and would feed an army. Turkey curry on boxing day yum!

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Juleyanne says...
9:11am Sun 18 Nov 12

No thanks, I will not be part of the christmas massacre of these poor birds - nut roast for me or Quorn Roast!

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rubberflipper says...
10:02am Sun 18 Nov 12

Two large chickens in Lidl will set you back less than £8. Great value and better than eating dull turkey on Christmas Day.

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mark by the sea says...
10:51am Sun 18 Nov 12

It's only a problem for butchers. If there mark up was say 10%' but we all know its more like 75%' that's the difference between them and supermarkets. Not really a story .

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Wiggsy says...
11:02am Sun 18 Nov 12

Hove Actually wrote:
My son works in London and pops down to Smithfield, the cost is cheaper than a supermarket and the quality is better than a Butchers. Amazing packs of bacon and sausages make it worth while if you can get there
Is your name Smithfield?

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MuammarQaddafi says...
11:28am Sun 18 Nov 12

Sorry, butchers, we haven't been able to afford turkey for years now. Our new Christmas tradition is Chinese takeaway.

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Hove Actually says...
11:40am Sun 18 Nov 12

Wiggsy wrote:
Hove Actually wrote: My son works in London and pops down to Smithfield, the cost is cheaper than a supermarket and the quality is better than a Butchers. Amazing packs of bacon and sausages make it worth while if you can get there
Is your name Smithfield?
Excellent, hoisted on my own pitard..

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Roundbill says...
2:24pm Sun 18 Nov 12

Sounds hazardous - you DO know what a petard is, don't you...?

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martyt says...
4:09pm Sun 18 Nov 12

davyboy wrote:
a turkey is a turkey, regardless of where you get it from, so why pay nearly £12/kilo, when a frozen one is just as good. we are just getting a turkey crown this year, as so much gets wasted off a whole bird. every year you see queues outside canhams in hove, and i really can't see the attraction of it.
i paid 3.49 a kilo for my turkey butterfly and there is no waste on it all meat and no bones ,can t see the point of buying a bag of bones with a bit of meat wrapped around it

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martyt says...
4:16pm Sun 18 Nov 12

Helen Ariel wrote:
You get what you pay for. Yes a free range organic turkey will be expensive but will have had a decent life and no rubbish pumped into it. My christmas turkey is never dry and would feed an army. Turkey curry on boxing day yum!
to be honest if you care that much about what kind of life you dead dinner had you would not be eating it in the first ,we all eat and drink the same toxic foods if you look at it in depth ,the planet has been ruined by the human race every drop of water we drink has been pass as pee at some stage in its journey around the planet ,so please tell me what s really
organic ??

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menowhere says...
6:14pm Sun 18 Nov 12

this year i will eat baby animals.

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banargustrolls says...
9:23am Mon 19 Nov 12

That reminds me who is keeping those dodgy London Rd butchers going? Urgh..

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