A Meaty Week

It’s National Butchers’ Week 8-14 March.

Organised by Meat Trades Journal, the week was first created to recognise and support independent craft butchers all over the UK, providing them with marketing materials, ideas and rewards to help drive awareness and sales. 

It’s almost upon us - but there are several ways you can still get involved.

Branded Materials

Eye-catching posters are available to downloadⁱ that can be placed in your shop window to attract passing footfall. The organisers have several suggestions of recipes and offers to incentivise your existing customers into store and buy different products: you can promote these in your window alongside the branded materials. 

Chances to Win

Meat Trades Journal runs competitions every week in the run up to National Butchers Week, partnering with fantastic organisations to offer prizes ranging from butchers’ twine to slicing machinery. Get involved and try to win! You could then promote that win yourself on your own social media channels.

Owned Competitions

Use the week as a news hook to create competitions. You could make five smaller hampers and give one away each day. Use your social media channels to promote the hamper competitions and attract existing and potential customers into store. Ask each winner if they would be happy to share a picture of themselves with their hamper on their social media; if they use it - it all helps spread the word!

Social Media

Create awareness around the week and build a buzz: perhaps release a fun fact about meat every day during the week and share on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram? Why not give shout outs to other butchers, restaurants and suppliers in the UK every day during the week: include their handle and the hashtag #ButchersWeek as it means there is more chance of your message being shared and seen by others.

Masterclasses

Create a cooking masterclass – normally, this could be done in-store, but this year you could film yourself preparing some meat or cooking a dish and share it online or on your social channels. Always with the hashtag, of course! Tempt your customers with the promise of face to face masterclasses in the future.

Butcher’s Shop of The Year

This award has been running for 23 years and is now known for recognising and celebrating true excellence, innovation and quality throughout the UK’s butchery industry. This event usually takes place in November. Because of the pandemic, this year rolled over to February and will be held as a virtual event, with worthy winners in every region. The awards also recognise the Young Butcher of the Year, new businesses, farm shops, online offerings, displays and innovation, so it’s well worth taking a lookⁱⁱ. Winning would be a fantastic opportunity to promote your business to your local community and build your brand and reputation. There is also a sausage-making competition, which has regional events all year!

Ultimately, this week is a celebration of craft butchers - intending to help you increase sales. But these tactics can be rolled out all year! As more customers come back to high street shopping, it will be vital to encourage them in - incentives, promotions, cooking ideas, and social media will help. It may also be the time to ensure your back-end admin is up to date, ensure you know any new rules on food hygiene, the mask and distancing needs in-store, as well as your pricing and insurance.

We work with craft butchers all over the UK and look forward to seeing all the fantastic activities taking place next week and throughout the year.

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