
The butcher's shop that lasted 300 years (give or take) - bookofjoe
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/sep/01/frank-fisher-butchers-shop-closure-death-of-high-street
======
locallost
Where I live in Germany, small traditional butchers and bakers etc. are also
closing down, but not for the lack of customers. They get too old, and nobody
wants to take over.

About 8 or so years ago, a baker closed at the city center, replaced by a
chain, and a friend lamented how traditional bakers can't keep up with the
chains that basically put frozen products in the oven. Her father laughed and
said the place was a gold mine, but the owner retired and nobody wants to get
up at 3 in the morning anymore to bake bread.

~~~
dmurray
Often the people who are willing to work long hours and lack formal
qualifications are immigrants. Maybe there are not enough immigrants in your
town? Or they would have needed to start as apprentices 5 years ago, and it's
hard for them to get into the apprentice system?

~~~
avhception
> hard for them to get into the apprentice system?

Speaking as a German, it's also a failure to integrate these people properly.
The small bakery in my home town closed down, too.

Immigrants are in no short supply, but there are a few factors that prevent
them from taking on a venture like that:

\- They're generally forbidden to work until their formal immigration process
has made enough progress in our bureaucracy, which can take years

\- They usually have no capital to pay for up-front expenses like buying the
buildings and equipment

\- We segregate them from society by putting them in some sort of immigrant
shelter while the bureaucracy does it's thing

Especially the last point is rather bad I think, it leads to parallel
societies that keep to themselves rather than integrating into the German
society surrounding them. Most Muslim migrants would probably rather not
operate a "German"-style bakery in the traditional sense.

Our capability for integration is declining, too, because as a society we are
becoming more and more estranged from our fellow citizens as community
activities, especially in small towns and villages, dry up.

~~~
razakel
It very much sounds as if you're confusing immigrants and refugees here.

~~~
jbarberu
I disagree. As an immigrant in America it sounds very much like my first 11
months here. Legal immigrant, unable to work while waiting for paperwork.

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whywhywhywhy
> "So they say you can’t close. And I think, well, come and spend your money
> with me instead, then."

You get this all over the small picturesque villages in the UK, people love
the idea of village shops and village pubs but few are willing to put any
money behind them. Remember my parents remarking that their neighbors where
sad the village pub was closing down, my parents thinking its ridiculous
because they only see them in there twice a year at best, it's 2 minutes walk
up the road. Pub did reopen thankfully, but if you want your village to retain
it's soul you have to spend your money there.

~~~
jon-wood
I saw this a while ago with a startup I was working for, we did online grocery
delivery for butchers, bakers, greengrocers and the like. Eventually we had to
shut down because we ran out of money, but we did one final week of deliveries
- that week was the biggest week we ever did, and the first to make a profit,
if all the people saying how sad they were to see us go and making one last
order had just used us instead of a supermarket every other week we’d still be
delivering.

~~~
ponker
I’d be willing to spend some extra money on a one-time artisanal steak or
loaf, that doesn’t mean I can or will spend that every week.

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avest
There's a butcher fairly close to where I live that's been open since 1760 and
there's often a line out the door on weekends etc. I love going there as if
you ask where the meat is from, they'll give you directions to their fields up
the road! If that's not the best way to determine animal welfare then I don't
know what is.

[https://www.fconisbee.com/](https://www.fconisbee.com/)

~~~
throwaway0a5e
The meat is just the transport mechanism. They're selling the known chain of
custody and novelty that comes with it being local. The product they're
imparting it on just happens to be meat.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. It's a perfectly valid thing to sell and
there's clearly a market for it but it is a luxury good and the viability of
such businesses are fundamentally dependent on the amount of discretionary
income sloshing around the local economy. That kind of business might make a
killing outside NYC but could be struggling to keep the lights on in a suburb
of Buffalo.

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fxj
Hofpfisterei is a chain of bakery shops, headquartered in Munich, Bavaria,
Germany. Its business focuses on southern Germany. It has 163 branches and
employs about 950 people.

Its history reaches back to the year 1331 when the mill Toratsmühle was
mentioned for the first time. It must have existed before that date.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofpfisterei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofpfisterei)

~~~
jansan
I once talked to a farmer south of Munich who claimed to have documents
showing that his farm belonged to his family since the early 12th century.
Society must have been really stable there for a long time.

Also, he told me that he is very unhappy with high land prices around Munich.
He could be a multi-millionaire immediately by selling his land, but his
familiy tradition does not allow this. Due to the high land prices, if he
gives a small part of the land to his daughter to build a house, he must sell
another part to pay the property sales tax (not sure I understood this
correctly).

~~~
fxj
Japan has the most stable environment for companies. In the list of the oldest
5 worldwide the japanese companies were founded in 578 until 771 AD, which
makes them more than 1400 years old!

According to a report published by the Bank of Korea in 2008 that looked at 41
countries, there were 5,586 companies older than 200 years.

3,146 (56%) are in Japan

837 (15%) in Germany

222 (4%) in the Netherlands

196 (3%) in France

Of the companies with more than 100 years of history, most of them (89%)
employ fewer than 300 people. A nationwide Japanese survey counted more than
21,000 companies older than 100 years as of September 30, 2009.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies)

~~~
jandrese
Japan had some advantages in this regard. Being a fairly small nation it was
possible to centrally administer it without the government splintering every
couple of decades. Being an island nation meant they were difficult to invade.
The final point in their favor was a rigid political hierarchy that
discouraged mid-level officials from getting too ambitious unlike Europe.

------
voldacar
Amazing and sad story, with some very poignant passages

> Frank had stood on the same patch of shop floor and been told about the
> death of his father, then his mother, now his girlfriend. . . . So the shop
> wasn’t only a place of business, Frank said, as he took back the photograph.
> It wasn’t only a local curiosity. That little room down there was the
> staging place for almost every major event of his life, and he could not
> bear to think of it being shuttered, cobwebbed, uncared-for.

~~~
pottertheotter
Can't say HN has made me teary-eyed before, but that got me.

------
tweetle_beetle
Dronfield is no longer really a market town in the sense of being a bit
isolated and independent - it's becoming an increasingly expensive suburb for
people who commute to the two large urban areas which it virtually touches. I
suspect that most people who live are used to driving a fair bit and doing a
"big shop".

Widespread private transport means that people don't _have_ to use local shops
any more, so they need to find a way to differentiate themselves from the
supermarkets. An independent butcher could thrive there, but, unfortunately,
probably not as an "everyday shop". Like many of these places, the route to
success is to embrace the gentrification and move up the quality ladder,
marketing themselves as a premium option and making local people feel good
about making the effort to go (and probably spending more money).

Weirdly online is a massive driver for that kind of business, but could be a
struggle for older generations(?). Without wanting being too prejudiced, most
working 80+ year olds are unlikely to be posting pictures of their produce on
Instagram, replying to reviews on Google Maps or having a stylish little
Squarespace site explaining how they get their lamb from farmer Dave who lives
with his wife and lovely children and rare breed animals on Daisy Farm just a
couple of miles away.

~~~
war1025
Growing up in one small town in the Midwest, and currently living in a
slightly larger but less vibrant small town in the Midwest, the internet is
the driving factor for most of the small businesses that I see thriving here.

Being able to do online sales, and have a small storefront where you keep your
inventory and also have a showroom for the public seems to be a winning
combination.

But running a small business takes a certain level of stubbornness, and it's
often easier to just check out and take an office job.

------
mothsonasloth
Covid showed me that decentralisation is the way to go (at least in terms of
food in the UK).

I had prepped well but there's always a few things you need and crave. In
those times searching the big stores you will be unlucky.

However the local butchers, corner shops were ok. Plus you discover some
treats that you don't get in the supermarket (Lorne sausage, freshly baked
rolls/baps/barms/whatever you call them locally).

Can't wait to see what economists research on shopping habits over the year
2020.

~~~
lebaux
To be fair if Covid really showed anything it is that we shouldn't eat
animals.

~~~
mothsonasloth
You clearly haven't tried Lorne sausage if you think that :)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorne_sausage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorne_sausage)

~~~
zshev
Agreed! I've emigrated to Australia and have taken to shipping over butchers
rusk to make my own Lorne (I'd call it slice) sausage.

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grawprog
That's fairly sad. I've never found a butcher whose quality or price is beaten
by a grocery store yet. I've also yet to find a quality butcher shop that
wasn't packed(pre-covid i suppose)

Butcher shops are also about the only place i've been able to find lean or
extra lean ground beef that don't contain some percentage of 'reconstituted
meat products', that pink slime shit.

~~~
samatman
I was with you on the first paragraph, but have never had difficulty finding
genuine ground beef free of LFTB/pink slime.

All beef labeled organic will be free of the additive, and CostCo, Kroger, and
Whole Foods (at least) never use it. There's also a cattle collective in my
home state, all the grocers around me carry it, and they never use pink slime.

I think it's a scandal that it's allowed to be slipped in without labeling the
addition. But there are a lot of places which carry the genuine article.

------
kerrsclyde
Thousands of shops like this must have closed in the UK over the past 20
years.

I grew up in neighbouring Leicestershire and in my town we had numerous
butchers, greengrocers, fishmongers - much of the produce was sourced locally
and sold wrapped in paper / paper bags and we used to walk into town to buy
it.

Now we drive to buy those goods from a single supermarket, flown in from all
corners of the globe and wrapped in layer upon layer of plastic.

~~~
coldcode
I went to a French baker in Dallas when I lived there, his breads were the
most amazing food item I think I ever ate, everything was amazing and made in
a very traditional French way. Not sure if its there any more (been 5+ years).

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nickt
Balson’s butchers (in the UK and US) are about to have their 505th birthday.
Their back bacon and bangers are the best I’ve found in the US.

[https://www.balsonbutchers.com/](https://www.balsonbutchers.com/)

~~~
kingofspain
I'm in Bridport all the time and I've still never been so I think I'll stop by
there next week.

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twic
I mentioned this to a friend who lives in Dronfield (well, Coal Aston), and he
said there are two other butchers there that are still open. They haven't been
there for three hundred years, but perhaps they're better butchers.

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anm89
That's heartbreaking. I feel bad for future generations who are never going to
get to see shops of that style.

