Let’s celebrate the UK National Butchers’ week 9th to 15th March 2020 – Highlighting all the great work being done by our traditional butchers all over the UK. A great platform for the butchers to showcase not only their fantastic produce but their innovation, diversity and first-class service to customers.
Here at ‘The Charcuterie Board’ we are really keen to promote various options for affiliate membership – a really good value way to become part of the wider industry network. Our aim is to attract people that might have at least one foot in the charcuterie world – whether they be chefs, food writers, other trade organisations, livestock farmers, but particularly we want to reach out to traditional Butchers.
Butchers shops were, and still are, such an important food hub for the community – traditionally they have focused on using all sorts of parts of the whole carcass that they breaking down, to produce innovative, imaginative and, at the end of the day, economical products – effectively this is the heart of what charcuterie really is all about.
As a Butcher, so many amazing products within the traditional offer would have fitted the definition of charcuterie. Today, quite often, it might not always be what we tend to think of, when we think of charcuterie. The tendency is for us to focus on salami and dry cured hams etc, when in fact there is a much wider world of cured or processed meats to offer, such as pates, fresh sausages, bacons and also traditional old school products like stuffed chine, haslet and potted meats. These all used to create a fantastic diverse landscape of value-added products within the butcher’s shop, that provided an efficient way for the butcher to use the less popular cuts.
At TCB we want to encourage a renaissance in the Butcher shop becoming a destination for charcuterie. Whilst the deli is great it has tended to become synonymous with more continental style cured meats, what about widening the offer from our Butchers shops? What about returning to the time when there was so much more ‘house-made’ charcuterie. In the current market there is a real thirst for locally produced, traceable and high-quality goods, butcher shops need to embrace that.
As an affiliate member of ‘The Charcuterie Board’, there are ways we can help introducing these elements to what the butcher shop can offer:
- If you aren’t able to make these things in house – it offers you a network to discover and look at buying product in from some our great UK producer members or discussing with them having unique products made for you to sell.
- If you have no experience of making charcuterie in the shop but would like to learn – then you can connect with our members that offer training, education and courses, as well as the backup of food safety programs and other affiliated trade organisations busy supporting Butchers. Why not get someone at your shop on a course and get them using low cost cuts efficiently, adding value and widening your range.
- If you’re a butcher shop that still has the skills and are still doing these things, or perhaps has staff that remember what used to be made – then we’re here to try and support a revival in seeing some of these fantastic products back on the shelves and we will promote them to the public and buyers alike.
Affiliate membership is just £25 a year and offers a great way to access the growing resources library, recipe development tools, interact with other makers, promote your own goods and let us help promote you too. Take a look at joining and be part of the future with us.
For full details regarding the Affiliate Membership or to join now click here
We would like to ask the Butchers out there, which particular products do you remember making? still make today? or otherwise feel deserve more credit and are due a revival?
Tell us about these traditional products and tell us why they are so good? what made them great? and let’s get the public up to speed on traditional products that they can enjoy once again.
What do you think are the best traditional, house made charcuterie products made by butchers? feel free to share recipes and ideas and let’s get these products making a comeback!
