It’s not long after 9am, and Séamus Etherson has already been at work for more than three hours in his butcher shop in Cabra, Dublin. Christmas is on the way, so it’s a busy time as people order their turkey and ham for the big day.
With ferocious supermarket competition driving many butchers out of business, this is a critical period for Etherson. Greeting a customer by name – “hello Christy” – he notes the pressing need to meet ever-changing consumer tastes to stay afloat.
“We find we’re selling a lot more boneless turkey. I suppose it’s easier for people. We put it in a cooking bag for them,” he says.
“There’s a pop-up timer in it that pops when it cooks. So it does take a lot of the hardship out of it, particularly for younger people. They’re looking at it and they’re saying ‘That’s very easy’.”
Seventeen years have passed since he opened his shop on New Cabra Road, taking over the much-loved German butcher Stein’s when the proprietor retired.
From a farming family living in the village of Coole, Co Westmeath, Etherson was alone behind the counter in the beginning.
“It was a slow build here. I started off on my own and, year two, we had three staff, and it grew,” he says.
Now he employs 10 in Cabra and another five in a second shop in Castleknock.
“We’re fortunate, especially for a country boy to arrive into the heart of Dublin. I was welcomed with open arms,” he says.
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In hard times for the sector, the growth in Etherson’s business is a rarity. His son James has followed him into the business. But hundreds of his counterparts have closed in recent years, leaving an ancient branch of the traditional retail trade in a ruthless struggle for survival.
Some call it the death of the Irish butcher – a gathering existential threat to a sector that once had a proud presence in large towns, small towns, villages and hamlets. It is akin to the demise of local pubs, post offices, village newsagents, fishmongers, vegetable shops and hardware stores – closures that have sapped the spirit of many communities. Convenience shopping is dominated by large retail franchises spanning the country. .
‘We don’t have other items to sell: the bread and the milk and the tea and so on. So we have to make our living out of meat – and they’re just using meat as a loss leader’
— Dave Lang, Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland, on supermarkets' pricing strategy
Etherson’s business is alive and kicking. More than 2,000 people come through his door every week. The trading day breaks down between older morning shoppers and the busier evening period, when younger workers shop on their way home.
“What we started doing here 17 years ago was completely different to what we’re doing now. It was basic. We would have cuts of meat, simple stuff. Now, 50 per cent of our business is done on trade packs,” he says.
These are dishes ready-made for the oven.
“So it’s a quick hit. It’s making their life a bit easier, a 35- to 40-minute cook and it’s ready. You need to constantly adapt in this business, because trends change,” he says.
Those same changing trends have left the sector facing an acute challenge.
The Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland, the industry’s representative body, charts a stark decline. No fewer than 588 sole trader butchers in the Republic have closed in 20 years, with about 550 remaining.
That means more than half the shops have shut in two decades, at a rate just shy of 30 each year, practically one every fortnight, and sometimes more.
This seems to defy the State’s fast population growth, a full-employment economy and the enduring popularity of foodie culture that places a premium on quality product and good cooking.
[ Dublin butcher off the hook after 60 yearsOpens in new window ]
So how did it happen?
“There’s a number of answers, but the main one is the supermarkets are using meat as a loss leader to get people in the door,” says Dave Lang, head of development with the association.
“We don’t have other items to sell: the bread and the milk and the tea and so on. So we have to make our living out of meat – and they’re just using meat as a loss leader.”
Lang says traditional butchers need to sell meat at a 32 to 33 per cent profit margin to sustain the business, but he believes some supermarket chains sell it at a profit margin of 2 to 5 per cent.
Others blame some supermarket groups for selling meat below-cost with no profit margin at all, leaving traditional butchers in a state of despair. If supermarkets offer convenience and parking, the double-yellow line on the street outside is fatal for some butchers.
Even where families have been in the craft for generations, many sons and daughters don’t want to take it up. With succession a problem, many butchers who own their premises simply sell up as they retire because the property itself is more valuable than the ongoing trade.
A butcher for several decades, Lang has seen everything.
“I remember at 14 years of age cleaning turkeys, taking the guts out of them until half four in the morning. It was a horrible job but it had to be done,” he says.
‘One thing we’ve always kind of tried to appeal to our customers is to be loyal to local small business, because if it goes, it’s gone forever’
— Waterford butcher Jack Molloy
“Every butcher I’ve ever spoke to – and I’ve probably been in every butcher shop in the country – is telling me the same story. You will see people [in the] middle of December ordering a turkey that you haven’t seen for the other 51 weeks of the year. So that tells us that they trust us with their Christmas turkey and ham.
“It’s the most important meal of the year so the customer wants it right. We’d love to get them the other 51 weeks of the year.”
Still, it’s not all doom. Butchers reported a temporary boost to sales during the Covid-19 lockdown, when people were confined to home and many people lived as if their real mission on earth was to cook, bake and plan meals. For some, the spin-off benefits continue.
“This shop was probably up 40 per cent to the point that it was difficult to handle – a nice problem,” Etherson says.
“We would find at weekends we definitely gained long-term out of what came. A lot of young people who were probably never in a butcher shop in their lives – a lot of them have stayed.”
Waterford butcher Jack Molloy likens passion for the job to farmers’ love of the land. Even at the age of 80, his father Jack snr continues to serve customers and make deliveries.
“I’m fourth generation. We’re nearly 100 years in the business. I’m in the business myself since I was 12 years of age, I’m 57 now,” Molloy says.
“We’ve been through recessions. We’ve been through food scares and different hygiene scares. We’ve been through Covid. We’ve been through many things, and we tumble out at the end of all these things.
“One thing we’ve always kind of tried to appeal to our customers is to be loyal to local small business, because if it goes, it’s gone forever.
“If it’s gone, it’s gone and something very intrinsic in your society is gone.”
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