SME News Southern Enterprise Awards 2024/ 54 Best Traditional & Organic Butchers 2024 - Surrey For centuries, butcher shops have served as an integral hub for communities, providing them with a space to purchase quality food and forge strong, lasting bonds between neighbours. Not only that, but butcher shops can contribute significantly to their community’s economy by sourcing locally and independently to help sustain agricultural communities and remain a valuable link in the food supply chain. Below, we speak with Sarah Lloyd, Director of The Surrey Butchers, an award-winning butcher shop who has been named in the Southern Enterprise Awards 2024. The Surrey Butchers has also received much feedback from customers seeking out meals high in protein and low in calories, a trend that has become increasingly prominent as the population becomes more health conscious. Being positioned just opposite the local gym on Godalming’s High Street results in The Surrey Butchers receiving a lot of custom from gym-goers looking for healthy, balanced meals. Finally, Sarah tells us that The Surrey Butchers has noticed an uptake in the amount of spicy food bought by customers. The business stocks a selection of curry sauces to meet the rising demand, which have become really popular among the locals. Not only that, but the topnotch team is also hard at work creating additional spicy meat products to add to its selection, some of which have become bestsellers in the summer months for barbequing. “Our staff are always preparing new products, and one of our butchers would stay in the kitchen preparing new products all day if he could!” says Sarah. “We have found that variation is the key to moving forward. Our customers love our staple products but are always asking what our butchers have come up with when they shop with us.” Looking ahead, The Surrey Butchers anticipates a year of product development to remain up to date with the emerging culinary trends, including creating more meat-based ready-meals and high protein, low calorie meals. What’s more, the business hopes to develop a customer-based cookbook, in which customers share their cooking experiences with products purchased from the shop. This development will be an instrumental endeavour in further bringing the area together and establishing The Surrey Butchers as a cornerstone of Godalming’s thriving community. Contact: Sarah Lloyd Company: The Surrey Butchers Limited Web Address: https://thesurreybutchers.co.uk/ Located in the picturesque village of Godalming, The Surrey Butchers is a small but growing independent traditional butcher shop. The business is on a mission to offer a service unmatched by its peers, delivering exceptional services and top-tier products. From its expansive product line to its catering services, The Surrey Butchers focuses on local links and sources its meat and ambient products from small, independent retailers as local to Godalming as possible. “It is very important to us, as being an independent ourselves, to buy as much of our produce and products from other small independent businesses, and we try to buy local wherever we can,” says Sarah. “This gives our customers a great selection of goods they will not find in other stores. Nearly all of the ambient goods we stock cannot be found in supermarkets, which is something our customers love.” In such a competitive market, it is vital that independent businesses recognise and optimise their unique selling points in order to better traverse the landscape. Boasting an astonishing century of collective experience, the butcher team at The Surrey Butchers leverage their extensive industry knowledge and skillsets to deliver top of the line products and services to clientele. “We have seen many changes to butchery over the years,” reflects Sarah, “but we pride ourselves on the fact that we are keeping the old traditions of butchery alive as all of our butchers are able to cut from the carcass. This means that we never have a disappointed customer, and nothing is ever too much trouble for the team.” Whilst maintaining tradition is important, it is equally as important to monitor the market for emerging trends and shifts in consumer behaviour. Through conducting surveys and collecting customer feedback, The Surrey Butchers has narrowed in on three key trends poised to shift the current landscape. First, Sarah tells us, is an increase in the purchasing of ready meals, which can be purely attributed to daily time constraints, especially within the working week. As a response to this, The Surrey Butchers now prepares and sells ready meals for customers with less time in their day. Rather than losing a popular demographic and forcing them to shop elsewhere, The Surrey Butchers successfully demonstrated its ability to adapt and refine its products and services to meet the varying needs of its customers.
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