I found my butcher

In my efforts to source locally grown produce for the take home meals I'm about to launch, I followed a lead from a friend who had told me about her cattle producing neighbours Tim and Ben (father and son).
I knew they had an outlet in Mornington on Wilson's Rd, so with the help of Google maps I quickly found a name and number, and got on the phone to get acquainted.
A few hours later I was down there in person, getting a tour of their little butchers shop.
Ben is a lovely man with a typical butcher's disposition. He loves his meat, and lots of it! I spent at least half an hour in his shop, talking about all the various cuts of meat I'm going to need, debating the virtues of pork shoulder versus pork neck, asking one of his customers for tips on cooking beef cheek, and generally getting a sense of whether I was going to do business with this place.
My visit ended with a very generous bag of 'samples' - beef cheek, sausages, mince & chuck steak - which Ben refused to let me pay for (however he did mention he likes red wine, so I plan to be better prepared next time I visit!). The beef cheek was a bit confronting. Much larger than I had expected, and with a few unfamiliar bits to trim that are going to prove challenging, but I know the effort will be worth it. I plan to buy some Pedro Ximenez sherry to cook it with, but in the mean time I've vacuum sealed it with my new vacuum sealing machine and popped it in the freezer - I'll revisit it when I have some time to do the surgery!

The mince we got was delicious. I know it's boring, but I'm planning on doing my tried and true version of bolognase sauce to sell. Ben's mince had just the right amount of fat to make it juicy, but not greasy. And it tasted delicious. It's a bit more expensive than other mince I can get, but figure I'd rather buy something that's locally grown and good quality, than cheap and from goodness-knows-where!
Which brings me to the local bit. Ben was almost misty-eyed when he talked about his animals. At the moment there are a lot of calves being born, so goodness knows how he manages to be front of house at the butchers shop AND manage the farming side of it, but I suspect it has a lot to do with his father Tim. Tim, by the way, is a man I had already met a month or so ago when my friend and I took some kids to his farm to pick blackberries. Little did I know that the gentle black bull I had to walk past to shut the gate that day was the sire of the meat I'm about to be cooking on a regular basis - but that's what I love about this story!

The cattle are born and raised in Main Ridge - one of my favourite places in the world and about 3 minutes drive from where I live. When they're grown to the right age, they're calmly hearded into a top pen in the afternoon and left to eat (their last supper!) while it gets dark. At about midnight, Ben walks them onto his truck and drives them up to Warragul to be slaughtered at a place that he claims is the "best in the southern hemisphere" because of their methods, and also their animal husbandry techniques. It seemed to me like a long way to go for a seemingly simple procedure, but it made me realise that there are probably 'ways and ways' to kill a beast, and it reassures me to know that he would go to such lengths to ensure his animals are not stressed in their final hours of life. (Oh, I probably should have said earlier that if you don't like to think about where your meat comes from, don't read this!).
He then brings back the carcasses and hangs them in his chiller room for a minimum of 3 weeks. This process is what distinguishes his meat from what you'd buy from the supermarket (most of which was still alive only days before it hit the shelves), as it develops a flavour and texture that is what good meat is all about. He let me hang out with these ageing bodies, which I probably should have tried to appreciate more, but it all just looked like legs and ribcages to me - the meat was hiding beneath layers of blue skin and dull bones.

Not enough to put me off though, and the end result is that I CAN'T WAIT to start using his meat. Interestingly, he told me about his experiences with supplying local restaurants with his product. He tried it for a while, but found it was not a sustainable relationship. Restaurants change their menus, their numbers and therefore their demands from week to week. Because Ben's meat takes 3 weeks to mature, filling large orders with only a week or two's notice is either impossible, or it means using all his stock for the shop, leaving his other customers with nothing to buy. He has now had to say no to all but two local businesses, and these lucky two are willing to work with him in timing, quantities and seasonal fluctuations - all of which come into much sharper focus when you're dealing with local products.

Ben likes the idea of supplying my business because he sees that I will have known quantities week to week, I aim to grow slowly, and I can plan ahead and be flexible about supply. We also hit it off really well, and I think we'll become good mates as I continue to order from him and talk to him about what's going on at his farm. I love being able to have that local knowledge, and long term I actually think that having a relationship with my suppliers will mean my products are not only more sustainably produced, but also ensure a higher quality product that is reflective of seasonal influences and protected from global instability.

This is Ben's Grandfather, selling meat to locals from the back of his cart in country Victoria. Circa 1950s