Express & Star

Midland butchers in their prime after horsemeat scare

It was the scandal that rocked Britain's supermarkets to the core, forcing food suppliers to recall thousands of products and changing the way the nation shopped for food.

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The horsemeat scandal, which broke in January 2013, led to a consumer backlash against supermarkets and saw customers returning to local butchers in their droves.

And one year on traders across Staffordshire and the West Midlands say business is still booming, with many reporting record profits over the Christmas period.

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Stephen Robinson, who runs Robinsons on High Street in Tettenhall, said the store has just celebrated a bumper Christmas on the back of increased sales across the board in the past 12 months.

"The day after news of the scandal broke we noticed more people coming through the door, and by the end of February we had an increase in sales of around 15 per cent," he said.

"This has continued throughout the year, with our Christmas sales up 18 per cent on the previous year.

Mr Robinson puts the sales spike down to an increased awareness of customers in the wake of the scandal, which emerged when food inspectors announced they had found traces of horsemeat in some frozen beefburgers stocked by UK supermarkets, including Tesco, Iceland and Lidl.

"The supermarkets spend a lot of money on advertising saying they are the best, but they got caught out," he said.

"This caused the public to lose faith in the big firms and brought them back to specialist butchers like us who focus on producing a quality product.

"I think people started to realise if a product is cheap, it is cheap for a reason."

Mr Robinson said he had also noticed a change in their customer profile, with more 25 to 40 year-olds coming through the doors than at any time in the store's 33-year history.

"More young families have started coming in regularly and buying their meat from us," he said.

"Parents have told me they would rather their kids eat a sausage made with quality ingredients rather than risking a product from a supermarket."

In South Staffordshire, Adrian Jackson, who co-owns Boxley's in Wombourne, said the store had eclipsed its previous best festive sales by almost 20 per cent.

"We had a considerable rise in trade throughout the year which culminated in a fantastic Christmas period.

"There is no doubt customers are more selective about what they buy since the scandal and people are willing to spend a bit more money to ensure they get a superior product."

Darren Symes, who runs his own butchers in High Street, Brownhills, said: "We had a massive influx of new customers in the weeks after the scandal broke, and we have managed to keep hold of the bulk of them."

Yesterday it emerged UK sales of ready meals are still suffering, with sales of frozen ready meals down eight per cent in the past year, while sales of chilled beef meals are down 12 per cent in the same period.

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