Dunedin traditional butchers set to 'champion the farmers'

Links Quality Meats co-owners Jim Biggs (left) and Greg Egerton are set to open a new butchery, which backs on to No Name Alley in central Dunedin. Photo / Shawn McAvinue

Two traditional butchers are setting up shop in Dunedin and calling on southern farmers to help them fill the chiller.

Links Quality Meats co-owners Jim Biggs and Greg Egerton are waiting for the fit-out of their new butcher shop to be completed in a Victorian building in Princes St, central Dunedin.

Biggs said the shop would include a walk-in chiller to help them realise a dream of being a "whole carcass butchery", supplying cuts of southern beef, chicken, lamb and pork.

"We really want to get back to that traditional standard of butchery and having strong relationships with producers," Biggs said.

Egerton said he enjoyed "the theatre" of butchering a whole carcass rather than removing cuts of meat from a carton.

The shop would give passionate farmers a platform to showcase each piece of their "beautiful animals", rather than sending them to a meatworks.

Biggs said they had the butchery skills to promote the meat produced by the "hard slog" of farmers.

"We want to champion the farmers."

Discussion with some southern farmers had begun but it was too soon to reveal who they were or the process to slaughter their animals.

In the meantime, they were calling for more farmers to talk to, Biggs said.

"If anyone has anything to offer, we want to showcase as many as possible ... from different breeds of cattle to nice heritage pigs - it's all out there but it's hard to find it."

Both men were realising a dream of owning a traditional butcher shop.

"We are both butchers owning a butcher shop, there's not many of those around anymore," Biggs said.

The industry had changed since both men were apprentices.

Now an apprentice needed to prove they could identify different cuts of meat in a carton rather than break down a forequarter of beef, Biggs said.

A dream was to take on an apprentice in the new shop and pass on the traditional skills.

The pair met working as butchers at New World Centre City in Dunedin, where Biggs was an apprentice.

Biggs recently returned to Dunedin after living in Melbourne for six years, working as head butcher at specialty butcher Meatsmith.

"Going over there was like doing a second apprenticeship - working at a traditional butchery really opened my eyes up."

The building backs onto No Name Alley, a space many businesses were moving into and a sense of community was building, Biggs said.

"It's exciting."

The word Links in the business name was a play on the term a link of sausages, the link of their friendship and links between themselves, the farmers and the customer, Biggs said.

"We want to do the best for the farmer and the public."