Butchers closing down

Everyone's going vegan 😉

(Pity the poor carrots, they have feelings too!)

There is only room for one or two people in the meat business in Ireland at the top. Supermarkets just want trayed meat. Its tough as a young lad to be entering the trade when you see the combination of the factories, cheap labour and difficult trading conditions. The Butcher used to be one of the most respectable trades in the village, not it is a difficult business to be in.

I'd rarely have used a butchers previously but have started going to one to get chicken breasts in the last year or two as the quality of the chicken in the Lidl by me was just generally terrible.

I used to enjoy the Aldi specially selected steaks but have felt these have gone downhill (combined with going up in price) recently too. I'm just avoiding steaks now though instead of going to a butcher for them.

I used to have a local in Manchester. Used to love going there. It was like being back at home again.

I assume they're closing down because supermarkets are beating them on prices, younger people aren't interested in the trade and there are more vegetarians now.

Yup. Look into it in deeper detail see Japan and USA gave technical assistance to poverty stricken Thailand. They pumped the agriculturally poor country with fertilizer to offset a famine and now they are addicted to the nitrates for cheap chicken.

Also the ease of buying in a supermarket. I'd imagine butchers that are in the same buildings/complexes as supermarkets probably fare better.

Rural village and small town butchers are all but gone now. Nobody seems to want to live in rural villages and towns anymore, opting instead for one-off houses, and that shift is slowly killing rural centres. People want drive to the-door convenience and to get everything in one place, and few seem willing to walk or browse.

City and urban-village butchers, however, seem to be thriving, where people are still living a more traditional retail life going to the local baker, butcher and greengrocer. I often have to queue when I go to the butchers I buy my meat from, same with the baker.