Summer catch up: Tough year, new name for Te Puna butcher

It has been a "very tough" financial year for Te Puna butcher Garth Bostock thanks to business-crippling roadworks and a costly new name.

Bostock Butchery on Minden Rd, now called Naked Meats, was losing hundreds – if not thousands – of dollars a day at some points last year.

Bostock attributed the business downturn to the drawn-out $5.25m project to replace the T-intersection at State Highway 2 and Minden Rd with a safer two-lane roundabout, and the congestion the roadworks caused.

"We were slipping back; some weeks – when they were working on our side of the road – they halved our turnover. So instead of doing $15,000 to $20,000, we were only doing $6000 to $10,000 and that means I've got to pull everything out of my bank account to pay everyone's wages."

He said business had improved "ten-fold" since the road was finished and things started turning around about the second week of December.

"People always take time kicking back into gear coming into Christmas because they've got Christmas, but once Christmas has started, for the next three months we should be flat out."

Te Puna butcher Garth Bostock is hopeful and enthusiastic about the New Year after a tough 2017. Photo/John Borren

Bostock said he still had some customers coming in not realising the road had been finished, however.

"I can't believe that."

On top of the stress caused by the roadworks, the butchery was also going through a name change.

"We're changing to Naked Meats. We've still got Bostock up here on the wall and that but we've got the designers and everything working on it now. But you can't get anything out until everyone gets back to work pretty much."

It did not come cheap – the name change has cost the company about $30,000 so far.

"And we haven't even got anything done yet," Bostock said. "That is life, though."

Everything going to plan, the new signage would be going up halfway through January, he said.

Feedback had been good.

"Even walking through supermarkets I get stopped – 'Oh, I hear you're changing your name'."

Bostock was hopeful and enthusiastic about the New Year.

"We're in the supermarkets – right up the Coromandel and through the Bay with our sausages and bacon and they're flying out the door."

The butchery was now also supplying Huckleberry in Mount Maunganui with Absolute Angus, lamb and pork.

The organic market is taking off around the country, Bostock said.

"So everything going well, we'll be jumping on that boat with them."