A cut above: Hawke's Bay butchery competition veteran slices into fifth national final

Hawke's Bay butcher Justin Hinchco reckons he's got probably one last chance of winning the national Young Butcher of the Year title, and he's taking it firmly in both hands.

At the weekend he won the Lower North Island stage for the third time and now heads for the Pact Packaging New Zealand Young Butcher showdown at the Vodafone Events Centre, Manukau, on August 3.

It'll be the fifth time he's made the cut in 10 attempts at national honours in the meat trade.

Justin Hinchco inside the butchery store room of Flaxmere New World. Photo / Warren Buckland

He lives in hope of making the top two in the national finals for the first time, but at the age of 33, and a butcher for 12 years, he's running out of time.

At 35 he will no longer be young enough, his future probably being in Masters competitions, when they have them and when it fits in with family time with his wife and two sons, and the eternal contest with the golf handicap, now 21.4 but once as low as 17.

As it happens, the Young Butcher competition is not necessarily held every year, and he's twice competed in Master Butcher of the Year contests.

But whatever it is doesn't seem to matter.

"It's quite a cool competition," he told Hawke's Bay Today during an at-home day in Flaxmere, with Zoom and other commitments in the new job he started three months ago as a butchery specialist for Foodstuffs North Island.

Justin Hinchco and the finished cuts on display at the Lower North Island regional butchery contest. Photo / Supplied

It would suit him, for it takes him to work anywhere from Cambridge to Wellington, including helping apprentices and other young butchers make their way in the trade.

A few days earlier he was at a Marton supermarket helping a competitor prepare for his first regional Apprentice Butcher of the Year event, which was won by a Hawera entrant.

The big attraction in the competition is meeting the other people in the fraternity, said Hinchco, who moved from Hamilton to Hawke's Bay initially to work for New World Havelock North, and then Waipawa Butchery, where he was based when he previously won the Wellington region honours in 2015 and 2016.

"Now it's time to fine-tune my display and focus on timing and getting things done a bit quicker," he said at the regional event in Wellington, where the task was to break down a size 20 chicken, a whole pork leg, and a beef short loin into value-added product ready for the shopfront.

The competition comprises five regional stages, the last two of which are in the South Island on Friday and Saturday.