Cool heads and class: Glenferrie Gourmet Meats

When vegan activists targeted an upmarket Melbourne eastern suburbs store in November, the staff knew what to do. Their priority? Their customers. 

And the result? Listen to a witness. “The staff handled it like absolute pros. They stayed calm, kept things respectful and even handed out free (chicken) nuggets. Brilliant move!,” said customer Cameron Bucar.

“The butcher took the moment in stride and turned it into a perfect bit of promotion for their delicious chicken nuggets and other quality meats by jumping right into the livestream. “In the end, the whole scene just showed how strong and clever small local businesses can be when faced with nonsense. Well played.”

Welcome to shopfront smarts from Josh Neilson, owner of Glenferrie Gourmet Meats since 2003.

He recalls: “I finished my apprenticeship in 1996 at this shop in Hawthorn but worked elsewhere for 18 months, including a supermarket butchers. Then I bought the shop with a partner. We knew about the customer side of the business, but didn’t have any idea about the back office, things like book keeping and payroll.” Josh admits it was a seat-of-the-pants operation to start.

“I went in pretty blind and my business partners didn’t have that experience either,” he says.  The numbers and figures we learnt on the job. “But the customers could see you knew what you were doing with the meats; they could see the shopfront side of the business was under control.”

Initially his team was boning beef “because we believed that was the source of the best product,” he said. “But we stopped about six years ago as we found the quality of the boxes was second to none.” The business is still boning pork and lamb.

Josh said that was important but they don’t run multiple choices of a particular line, partly because the shop is in an affluent area of Melbourne. “You could have a high-end eye fillet, but we don’t run any of the budget lines, although we do run a special every day, which is designed to get people in the door.”

“It is more about selling the better meat and focus on quality, even when it is crumbed or marinated product.” Josh says repeat customers are driven by quality and consistency rather than bargains.

Sometimes switching a product to a better supplier has seen the retail price go up, but Josh says they are now selling more, because of the product quality is the driver. “It is a real quality-based style of selling,” he said.

The store signature are their huge deep-fried chicken nuggets which were locally famous until a Tik-Tok influencer wrote about them. Customers now flock from all over Melbourne. “We were selling 40 to 60kg on weekends, but after the Tik Tok post we were selling half a tonne,” he said. “And it has kept up 18 months on, we are still selling more nuggets that we did before the post.

“People who come in for nuggets often make additional purchases,” he said.  “We get a lot of uni students who will just buy the nuggets, but the real drawcard are the kids putting pressure on mums to get them so nuggets. That makes a difference when it comes to additional purchases.”

The butcher’s shop in Hawthorn has expanded opening a deli next door. The two shops are now connected internally after knocking through the adjoining wall. The deli has been opened six months under the brand of a provedore.

“Basically we have moved the small amounts of small goods we did in the butcher’s shop next door,” Josh said. “We used to do half a dozen cooked meal lines and made our own ham and turkey lines, but now these have moved over there and expanded,” he said.

“So instead of just selling two or three options of smallgoods, we are now selling 40 options of small goods. Instead of selling six pre-cooked meals, we are now selling 25 to 30 lines of meals. The cooked meals are the biggest things and we use three chefs, so that is how much we are selling.”

“There is a cross flow between the two shops similar to the nuggets. There are plenty of people who go to one (shop) and check out the other. It is beneficial to both businesses,” he said, with a smile.