Fermanagh Butchers still going strong with local produce

The business has solidified itself as a mainstay in the village and despite the lack of surrounding shops, business is booming for owner Gary Irvine and his bustling team of employees.

Irvine’s is coming up to 16 years of serving locally produced meat to consumers in the area after being set up in 2008 and has gone from strength to strength with continuous upgrades and expansions over the years.

Gary began his career as a butcher in his early teenage years before amassing his wealth of experience in the industry along with his enthusiasm for business to create Irvine’s Butchers and set the path for his entrepreneurial career.

“I started butchering when I was 14 after schools and weekends,” Gary explained.

“With that, I left school and started butchering for a different butcher in Enniskillen and done that for another few years and then went back to Tempo, which is my hometown, and then moved on and was working in a factory and worked my way up to production manager, then left there after eight years and started butchering with another shop.

“A few months later, an opportunity came up in Maguiresbridge, there was a shop lying vacant, so we started in '08 and after five years there we moved across the street. I was renting there, and this property was up for sale and I decided to buy it, that’s where we are now, today.”

Irvines prides itself on its ethos of working with local farmers and gaining all of the best produce from the Fermanagh region with Gary’s involvement in farming aiding its supply of meat as well as supplying goods to other establishments around Northern Ireland.

“We source a lot of the meat. I do a bit of farming myself, between me and my older brother Keith,” added Gary.

“We rear a percentage of our cattle and we also have another few farmers of a 10-mile radius that would supply me with some stock, and we have a farmer who would buy cattle and finish cattle in between that.

“It’s all local, probably in a 10-15 mile radius. We do a few restaurants, hotels, shops, Costcutter’s, and Vivo’s all across Northern Ireland. We’re here to Warrenpoint, Limavady, Ballymena, around Larne, Belfast, all around really.”

Irvine’s made the short trip across the main street road, in 2013, moving into a bigger area of space in order to allow for the increasing demand for its popular products and mouth-watering selection of meats.

Even with the move back over a decade ago and a recent extension to the shop, the continued growth of the business has still made things difficult to withstand its growing needs.

“We were running out of space on that side of the street so that’s why we made the decision to come over here and about just over a year ago, we joined up with Henderson Wholesale which supplies all the Spars and Vivos,” Gary continued.

“We’re known to all Spars now. That quadrupled my business here, so it really has taken off this last 14-15 months.

“We’re supplying now I think 94 shops up until now and there’s a lot more growth there. We did an extension here about two and a half years ago to give us more room.

“We’ve nearly outgrown that so we might have to do another extension as well if we want to keep progressing.”

Irvine’s employs a total of 40 staff members including chefs, butchers and delivery drivers in order to sell their range of sausages, burgers, steaks, chicken, and kebab skewers as well as their popular heat-to-eat products like cottage pies, lasagnes, fish cakes, pie selections and carbonara among a number of other products.

Like any industry, the meat industry is not without its challenges in a progressively difficult period for local businesses striving to join forces with neighbouring farms.

As well as listing the looming presence of imported goods from larger corporations, Gary also explained how the trade of butchering has been dwindling.

“There’s no one taking on the profession of butchering at the minute that I’ve seen, there are no courses locally that I know of, that’s training in butchering.

“So, there are less and less people taking up the butchering profession so, I think as the years come that’s going to have a massive impact on things.

“The other thing is obviously the larger supermarkets. They are importing beef, but they’re not getting it within a 10-mile radius. That is hurting every butcher in the country really.

"I think because of price increases, people are starting to sway back to supermarkets because of prices. Beef has never been as dear, or lamb, anything now has really grown in price these last couple of years, it just hasn’t come back at all.

“They would be two of the biggest things that’s going to hit. I know a lot of butchers have stopped boning beef, buying it off the factories already boned, but we like to hang our beef for four weeks at least, 28-30 days.

“We bone all our beef and again we are buying local, so, it’s all elements we’re buying, so, yeah I think that the biggest impact is price [and] supermarkets importing the beef.”

The Hanging Fridge of Irvine's Family Butchers, Maguiresbridge. (Image: John McVitty)

Irvine’s Butchers continues to prevail despite global business in the county with Gary still eager to stretch its potential.

“I’m very happy with the way the business is going growth-wise,” he said.

“It’s got a lot of challenges with price increases and all, but we’re well established now, I’d like to branch out to the southern market as well maybe because we are a bordering county.

“I’m kind of in the right place now with supplying shops and all because people are watching what they spend, it’s more of a convenient shop now. They like to go into a grocery shop now, or a Spar or Vivo or whatever.

“It's convenience they want. To lift up a packet of mince, lift up the spuds or whatever they want, so I think we’re in the right position now.”