The Butchers Club

Meat and alcohol tend to be perfect partners so it is an obvious choice for butchers to sell either beer or wine with the customer’s purchase.

However, few retail butchers sell this add-on to their product mix, but one Melbourne group has embraced the concept for many years now. 

The Butcher Club CEO Peter Robinson explained how selling beers and wine in store started about 17 years ago. 

“I started the business in Williamstown and got a liquor licence, which was a lengthy process going through all the applications,” he said.

“This was a store with a little bit of difference as it had take-home meals and seafood.” Mr Robinson said about 10 years ago the Victorian Government changed the licencing laws, so that butchers, florists or hairdressers could apply for an exemption.

“We did that and got exemptions for some of our stores,” he said. “Then 12 months later they changed the rules again whereby you were automatically exempted.”

Mr Robinson explained there are restrictions on selling alcohol through a retail butcher store. The shop can only sell 1.5 litres per transaction, which means it can only sell a four pack of beer or two bottles of wine.

“It has to be packaged liquor, so you can’t sell by the glass,” he said.

“We are purely retailers, so offering beer fits is a really useful bolt-on for people having barbeques or dinners.”

The Butcher Club doesn’t sell mainstream beers, only craft beers like Breheny Brother Breweries based in Melbourne. 

“It gives us a point of difference and as we are in shopping centres, there are major outlets like Liquorland with the main brands,” Mr Robinson said. “So if the customer wants a slab of a particular beer, they will go there. We wouldn’t be able to compete against the large outlets.”

He said the company has a great relationship with James Breheny with its long tradition of brewing going back to 1864. 

“It produces traditional beers that don’t have the fruity gimmicks, which makes them an attractive product for us to sell,” Mr Robinson said. 

Butcher Club Peter Robinson … with a promotion display of the netball team that his business supports. 

The Butcher Club has 10 retail shops, all in Melbourne shopping centres and usually sitting outside a major supermarket. “We are traditional butchers so we still break down carcasses with beef, lamb and pork,” he said. “And we still do seafood in some stores, where there is a shopping centre that doesn’t have a fishmonger. We supply fish to those stores from our Plenty Valley store where there are two fishmongers.”

Like the brewery, Mr Robinson has a long history in the meat trade. “I have been a butcher since I was 17 with a rich history as my father, my grandfather and all his brothers were butchers. And today one of my boys is also a butcher.”

He said the company probably has the right number of shops at this stage.

“The locations are important, but we have to have the right team to staff them,” he said. “There is a certain expectation when you walk in to one of our stores, so we want to deliver good service and not let any standard drop. The brand becomes very important.

“And if we do have a problem, I jump straight on to it; we apologise and sort the problem. 

I can’t remember a time when I haven’t turned a negative into a positive.”

The Butcher Shop doesn’t handle internet sales, but it does have an app which works well, Mr Robinson said. 

“We run a successful rewards program with a promotion each week,” he said. “And that does include the beers some weeks and that does boost sales.”