Anyone who enjoys eating meat will often as whether butchers meat is better than supermarket meat. Here’s why you should always be heading to a butcher or farm shop for your Sunday dinner protein!
It’s no shock to learn that the most ethical place to get your meat is from a place that can find out the animal’s care when it was alive.
But what should be clear to the consumer is how the animal came to be on your plate with lush veggies and gravy on a Sunday lunchtime (or any other time for that matter)!
We, of course, are not saying that you should eradicate meat from your diet, far from it!
However, if eating meat is a part of your daily diet and it is firmly staying that way, the very least you can do is arm yourself with the best quality sources of your favourite protein.
But what is the best quality meat, and where do you find it?
Butchers
Local butchers are by far the best place to get the best quality meat.
And by quality, we mean they know the originating source of the original product.
It’s likely that butchers have either reared and slaughtered the animal themselves or personally know the people who have.
Butchers have many standards of quality that they assess their produce against, leading their meat products to be the freshest meat and the best quality produce they can provide.
Remember, being a butcher is a trade, and a trade has to hold a certain standard of reputation!
Farm Shops
Closely following butchers for the best quality meat: We have farm shops.
Farm shops are incredible places that generally connect themselves to fresh local producers, farms, and local businesses and will stock the best quality local produce available.
The produce they have will either be direct from their own grounds and farms or from local food hero producers who will stock the farms’ shops with the very best products the local area offers.
These places are the diamonds in the rough when looking for the best quality meat to fulfil your quality meat requirements secondary to butchers.
Supermarkets
Supermarkets are most people’s go-to for meat products and the rest of the weekly shop, just because it’s convenient and has lots of variety all in one place.
This is not to say that supermarkets don’t hold quality meat to purchase; it is to say that when you buy from a place that turns over thousands of units a day, the produce available may be of lesser quality than buying directly from an originating source.
The price tag on supermarket meat will obviously attract many people to buy more than they need from a supermarket; offers and discounts are always welcomed, but does it always reflect the best quality you can get that way?
As we are on the subject of price…
Are Butchers More Expensive?
I guess this really is a matter of opinion and a question of affordability!
In general, yes, the meat from a butcher will have a slightly higher price tag, and here’s why:
Butchers can often tell you which animals the meat came from, what breed they are, where they lived, and what they ate. This information only enhances the quality of their products. It is something a supermarket, for instance, may struggle to answer.
A butcher will also have a slightly higher premium for their meats as they don’t overstock; they rely on stocking fresh meat for their consumers while working in conjunction with a seasonal calendar and they ensure their sources and suppliers are of the best quality.
They source either direct or from local and reputable farms, where they know that the products they provide are of the best quality.
This can be from the reputation of their product or from many years of working together to provide the best quality to consumers.
Is Butchers Meat Organic?
The origins of the produce a butcher acquires will denote whether the meat is organic or not.
If the source of the meat has been certified as an organic producer, the mean can be called organic.
To be classified as legally certified organic, the standards in the UK are::
- Their animal feed must be grown to organic standards to at least 95%.
- There is to be zero use of Genetically Modified Organisms.
- There must be no use of artificial fertilisers or pesticides on feed crops or grass.
- The trail “From Gate to Plate” has been inspected and certified.
- Animal welfare is of the highest priority and is rigorously checked at regular intervals.
As you can see from this list, to be certified organic takes a lot of checks and certification, which is a great way to know how your meat is treated and where it comes from.
Butchers who are themselves organic farmers and those butchers who are attached to a supplier who has organic meat certification will, of course, provide organic meat.
Those butchers who provide top-quality meat from non-organic sources will obviously still have the best quality meat from the best reputable sources available to them.
Is Butchers Meat Always Local?
Again, this can be a matter of opinion!
Do you class local as within 1 mile or 10?
As a general rule, we can denote “local” to be anything that has travelled the least amount of miles to get to you.
Butchers will source their produce from the best and most local suppliers they can find. You have to remember that this is their business and their trade, so they won’t be in the game of providing shoddy meat!
They will obviously want to keep their food miles as low as possible. While this is also true for any reputable fresh food shop, it is sometimes tricky if the best quality butcher is a little further from the source, say, in the remote countryside.
So, I’m sure that you can see that the produce from any reputable butchers will be as local as possible and of the best quality.
Final Thoughts
In answer to the question “Is Butchers Meat Better Than Supermarket Meat?” we would definitely be giving a strong yes when this question is asked every time!
Knowing where your meat comes from and how it has been reared is super important. Knowing that it has been raised in an ethical environment can afford a higher price tag all by itself! This is why butchers meat is usually better than supermarket meat.
But also knowing that meat is the actual trade of the butcher should instil that immediate confidence of trust, knowing that the produce they base their businesses on is of much better quality than mass-produced supermarket counterparts.
Organic or not, they will still have fresher meat, a more specialist variety, and a lot more knowledge about what you are buying from their counters.
And, if you don’t have a local butcher, head to your nearest farm shop to look for the best quality meat because it’s likely that a local butcher stocked their quality meat there too!
