The small retailer's key to successful trading

.

Charles Gould, who runs Fine Fettle, in Frances Street, Truro, sells lamb from Dutch Zwartbles, pork from Large Black pigs and beef from South Devon cattle. "These are all reared on my farm," he said.

I have three supermarkets within a mile of me and there is no way I can compete on price. I am, however, one of the country's main producers of Dutch Zwartbles and Large Black Pigs. I am also one of the very few retailers." He adds that the main drawback is production costs, which are higher than those of producers of more regular breeds.

"Sourcing the original brood stock is more expensive and the time to

maturity is longer. At the same time, we can't be stupid with price. We have to be competitive. So that means we have to watch our costs. One of the ways of doing this is by doing all the processing we can in-house.''

Mr Gould insists the initial effort and expense was worth it. He even adds that it may be necessary to use the specialty meats as an initial loss leader to build up the business. He began expandiing away from his farm eight years ago. "I was always interested in rare breeds but I found I wasn't getting the right price at the regular markets so I started slaughtering the meat myself at local abattoirs and then went to farmer's markets.

" This was good for a time but then I found I could not sell enough. I had sheep and pigs backed up so I opened a unit in the market in Truro. "That proved to be popular. Inside 15 months I was able to move to a freehold unit in the centre of Truro. Since the move, business has gone up by 60 per cent. Part of this may be due to the fact that we have a better location here with more passing trade," he said. Last year, Fine Fettle sold 500 lamb and mutton carcases, and 150 Large Black Pig carcases. The next move forward is to process cold meats and sausages in-house.

The business has started selling hog's puddings, which are a speciality in Cornwall, and demand is good. "To begin with, we sold them just in the county but now we are getting orders from other parts of the country, which is encouraging. Our hog's puddings are 90 per cent meat - good quality pork. That is what the customers want. Meat that I don't breed myself I try and buy in from other small producers in the area. Then we process it all ourselves."

Looking to the future, Mr Gould says he plans to take on more staff to cope with increasing trade.

At present he employs three full time and one part time staff.

"The more accessible location of the new shop and our diversification into offering a range of high quality, predominately, delicatessen-style goods should give us appeal to an even wider range of customers," he said.

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend

Bookmark this

---