Back to basics

There was a time when a butcher sold meat - and that was it. But supermarkets pretty much changed all that. From the 1980s onwards, they have dominated UK food retailing and many high streets across the country are now very sad sights indeed or are simply out-and out-clones - with shop after shop offering the same products and goods in Dover that you can get in... Coventry, Dundee, Wrexham or Derry, for example.

Most butchers now offer a bit more than meat, some offer a lot more. Or, in the case of a butcher not far from MTJ HQ, the only diversification they can muster is to entice customers with packets of lard.

As someone from EBLEX told me recently, meat is just an ingredient, it would be very strange for a person just to eat it on its own. Vegetables and potatoes come to mind, but people who like to cook - the number of which has received a boost recently thanks to all the cookery programmes on TV - demand flavouring, spices and sauces. We hope this selection helps.

Adam Baker

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