Thorne in the multiples' side

Mike Thorne points proudly to the newspaper article that has pride of place in the window of his Somerset butcher's shop and says emphatically "That sums us up, that says it all." The headline proclaims 'Quality, price and expert advice.'

It is a claim that can be made by many of Britain's 7,000 or so independent butchers, of course, but in Mike's case he has one particular accolade that is his alone - he has just been voted the world's best butcher.

Business magazine Retail Week asked 100 top retail leaders for their nomination for their best store from literally anywhere in the world. The resulting list includes shops in New York, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Paris, Beirut, Milan, Barcelona, Tokyo, London and ...er.... Wiveliscombe.

Not far from Exmoor, Wiveliscombe is a small town set among the rolling hills and lush greenery of rural west Somerset where many of the stone buildings reflect the deep, ruddy, red colour of the rich soil that defines the area and the neighbouring county of Devon. Wiveliscome, known to locals as 'Wivey', is home to Mike's business, Thorne's Butchers. He has quietly traded there in one of the town's many Grade II listed buildings, since 1979.

The quiet bit changed dramatically when retail boss, Nigel Whittaker recently gave Thorne his nomination. By all accounts Whittaker knows a thing or two about retailing, having been a main board director of European retail giant Kingfisher, chairman of DIY chain B&Q, and also chairman of the government's Deregulation Taskforce for Retail, Tourism and Small Business. His nomination described the Wiverliscombe butcher thus: "Living proof that well run small stores have nothing to fear from supermarkets."

So how did he come to know Thorne's Butchers, after all it is hardly on his route to the boardroom. Thorne, who knew nothing about the nomination until a national newspaper photographer came knocking on his door to record the honour, has his suspicions. "He's been in the area about a year. He bought a farmhouse a couple of miles away."

Whittaker is a founding partner of Reputationinc, that claims on its website to be the first - and, to date, only - consultancy to focus solely on reputation management. While it talks about organisational infrastructure, responsibility programming, reputational risk assessment, and high level media intervention, Thorne is still talking about quality, price and expert advice, although he has had his fair-share of high level media intervention since his nomination.

Mid-Monday morning and the Wivey shop is packed to the walls with customers, most of them trying to ignore the MTJ photographer while surreptitiously trying to work their way into the picture. Customer visits have risen from about 800 a week to something over 1,000 since Thorne's rose up the retail rankings to rub shoulders with the likes of Selfridges in London and Bloomingdales in New York.

Mike does not have to travel so far to know what's good for his business. Nearby he farms 75 acres and rents another 75. On it he finishes suckler calves and sends them to slaughter at Stillmans in Taunton, Somerset's county town a dozen miles away. "We like Charolaise bulls crossed with South Devons, Herefords and some Angus," he says. "We like something that's approaching 24 months, something with a bit of cover over it. We hang it for two weeks and cut it for that week's trade. It's darker meat, not bright red like the supermarkets."

The business remains centred around the family. On the farm is Mike's son Rodney, where he practices the art of farming learnt from his grandfather, while wife Rosemary and twins Jason and Jonathan work in the shop along with full-timers Dave Tooze and Gavin Taylor, and part-timer Wendy Smith.

"People like to know where their meat comes from," says Mike, so most of it is sourced either from his own farm or locally. Extra supplies of beef and lamb come from his brother-in-law and free-range pigs from a local farmer. Poultry comes from nearby Crediton and Wellington. The shop, which is on the smallish side by most standards, gets through two bodies of beef a week, 10 lambs and four pigs. It also does a good trade in cooked beef, pork and hams while pie trade mainly revolves around steak and kidney, steak, and pasties. On top of this, Mike manages to squeeze in a range of 30 cheeses. "We get in as much local as we can," he says.

In talking about the shop having nothing to fear from supermarkets, Whittaker is effectively saying that Thorne's trades on its reputation for good, honest, largely home-produced fare with no frills.

So has the nomination of one of the country's retail consultants whetted the ambition of the small shop? It is not a case of Wiveliscombe today, the world tomorrow according to Mike. After 27 years trading there are no ambitious expansion plans. In fact Thorne does not even know the man who has catapulted him to world fame and local stardom. "I haven't seen him. I know he's a customer but I wouldn't know him if he walked through the door." Never let it be said that fame has turned Mike Thorne's head. But he is up there with the best when it comes to reputation - and that is something Nigel Whittaker knows a lot about.

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