{"id":2889,"date":"2025-09-05T03:28:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T03:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/2889\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T03:28:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T03:28:06","slug":"cost-of-living-driving-demand-for-homekill-local-butchers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/2889\/","title":{"rendered":"Cost of living driving demand for homekill, local butchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI think it\u2019s a case of people buying a bit less, but they\u2019re buying better quality and getting more bang for their buck, not just going for volume,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they are getting steak, it\u2019s maybe once a week as opposed to three times a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he\u2019d noticed some old-school, thrifty habits making a comeback.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough the winter we\u2019ve sold a lot of bones for people making their own stocks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompared to pre-made stocks at the supermarket, for half the price you can buy the bones and make your own stock \u2013 you get twice as much and it\u2019s healthier.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said shanks, gravy beef and shin on the bone were all more affordable, and could be just as tender and tasty if slow-cooked.<\/p>\n

If in doubt about what to buy and how to cook it, Andrews urged people to talk to their local butcher.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wear an apron and are covered in blood and stuff, but we want to help people have the best meals they can have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018They\u2019re definitely going for cheaper cuts\u2019<\/p>\n

In the rural town of Waipawa in Central Hawke\u2019s Bay<\/a>, butchery owner Annabel Tapley-Smith, too, had seen customers\u2019 choices changing over the past six months.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re definitely going for those cheaper cuts, the mince or casserole steaks, and we\u2019re getting customers that may have not shopped with us before,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

People were noticing butcheries provided higher quality for comparable prices to what they were finding in supermarkets.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they\u2019re coming back because of the quality,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"AnnabelAnnabel Tapley-Smith. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n

The biggest difference, though, had been in sales of the butchery\u2019s ready-made meals.<\/p>\n

\u201cSingle-income households, the elderly, or people on a really tight budget are actually buying those ready meals because you can get a good serving with all the vegetables in it, for $15.\u201d<\/p>\n

Production out of their kitchen this winter had tripled, she said.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t all smooth sailing; the small business had to let one staff member go and were tightening up on spending wherever they could.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of our butchers finish early or they may start a bit later … everyone is dropping an hour or picking up an hour here \u2013 we\u2019re having to be really mindful of how we are operating,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Tapley-Smith said they were in a unique position as the butchery\u2019s meat was supplied by her and her husband\u2019s farm, Patangata Station, so the higher meat prices were actually beneficial for that side of their business.<\/p>\n

\"WaipawaWaipawa Butchery’s ready made meals. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n

Cost of living is \u2018out the gate\u2019<\/p>\n

Hawke\u2019s Bay homekill butcher Aaron Pohatu has 20 years\u2019 experience in the industry, and six years ago he opened up his own homekill meat processing business from his backyard in Clive.<\/p>\n

Demand for his skills had skyrocketed recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s grown massively, I\u2019m definitely busier than ever,\u201d he told RNZ.<\/p>\n

\u201cCost of living is out the gate<\/a>. Meat is the most expensive I\u2019ve ever seen it. The price of meat in supermarket … everyone now knows this is just horrendous.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said with people feeling the pinch of the economy, they were more inclined to go hunting, eat the meat they could shoot and bring it to him for processing.<\/p>\n

The abundance of deer in the nearby Ruahine, Kaweka Ranges and neighbouring farmland was also keeping him busy.<\/p>\n

\"AaronAaron Pohatu. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n

He said for those who could get their hands on wild or farmed meat it\u2019s a much cheaper option.<\/p>\n

It costs about $30 to $40 for him to bone out a deer, around $8 a kg to make sausages and $5 a kg for mince.<\/p>\n

He was also a keen hunter himself, and said in tough times like this, giving away meat to those who needed it was a good feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamily and friends around me, they all get it, but there\u2019s also people I know who are struggling and I\u2019ll go, \u2018Here, have this\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt always comes back in some other form, I give it away and then next thing someone is dropping off something they have and I don\u2019t \u2013 like crayfish and fish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"AaronAaron Pohatu making sausages. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n

it was all about talking to locals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people on farms that are shooting deer, let them know that you\u2019re really keen to get your hands on a venison and try some of this stuff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018We have to suck it up\u2019 – Mad Butcher<\/p>\n

While community butchers were seeing an uptick thanks to high meat prices, it was proving a challenge for large retailer, the Mad Butcher.<\/p>\n

Owner Michael Morton explained margins were being squeezed as meat prices were constantly increasing, sometimes by 80 cents to $1 a kilogram a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed meat prices are at an all-time high and going up every week, so it\u2019s hard to keep on top of from a retail point of view,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t keep changing your prices on a weekly basis so sometimes we have to suck it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was becoming tougher to offer customers specials, \u201cbecause the cost prices are so high you wouldn\u2019t consider it to be special\u201d.<\/p>\n

Like other butchers, they were also seeing an increase in people through the door – but people were spending less.<\/p>\n

\"HomekillHomekill steak. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re buying less red meat than previously, and buying more pork and chicken because it\u2019s based on price,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Morton said the red meat increases were being influenced by export markets and land-use changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all driven by supply and demand \u2013 a lot of our meat goes overseas, and there\u2019s been a lot of dairy and forestry conversions so there\u2019s a lot less stock on the ground and a lot less meat to go around,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He hoped meat prices would start improving through spring and summer, as farmers sold more animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cSummer is always the best time… more barbeques and more meat eating … and the stock is more plentiful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

-RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think it\u2019s a case of people buying a bit less, but they\u2019re buying better quality and getting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4193,138,4192,4194,4187,4190,4189,2082,4191,4188,440,111,139,69,1118],"class_list":{"0":"post-2889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-alexa","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-butchers","11":"tag-cook","12":"tag-cost","13":"tag-demand","14":"tag-driving","15":"tag-for","16":"tag-homekill","17":"tag-living","18":"tag-local","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nz","22":"tag-of"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}