Should meat be displayed in butcher shop windows?
Over the weekend, a Suffolk petition triumphed, as JBS Family Butchers removed the meat hanging in its window display. The shop, in Sudbury’s Borehamgate precinct, followed the centuries-old tradition of displaying its wares in the window until it became the target of a letter campaign in the Suffolk Free Press.
“I, too, have been disgusted at the needless display of multiple mutilated carcasses on display,” wrote Ben Mowles from Great Cornard, who claimed he had been forced to suspend trips with his 12-year-old daughter to the nearby sweet shop because he would “rather not look at bloody severed pigs’ heads when buying sweets.”
It is a stark image. The father shielding his daughter’s eyes as he rushes her past the “mutilated carcasses” – which show the signs of provenance, the story of where the meat came from. He protects her from the reality of the chicken that goes into chicken nuggets, the beef that goes into beef burgers, the pork that goes into sausages. And he rushes her to Marimba sweet shop to find solace in a bar of chocolate instead.
Roger Kelsey, chief executive of the National Federation of Meat & Food Traders, explains that butchers’ windows have been the subject of investigation in the past. There are regulations surrounding the hygiene of hanging fur and feather alongside pre-prepared meat. “But this is different,” Kelsey says. “This is public opinion, branding butchers’ windows too gruesome.”
At butchers M Feller Son & Daughter in Oxford, it is quite a different story. Far from hiding his produce behind the counter, Michael Feller hangs it outside the shop to attract custom. There are often woodcock, pheasants, wild boar and even whole Père David’s deer on display. “We do have complaints,” says Feller, “but the reaction is an overwhelmingly good one – particularly at Christmas, where the window is a real draw. It is important people remember where their meat comes from,” says Feller, whose grandchildren recently joined the family business.
“The problem is that supermarkets tell us what cuts we’re allowed to eat. They wrap it and package it, and people forget that pork loin ever even came from a pig. My customers often come here for sweetbreads or testicles and other interesting cuts, but as soon as you start to target independent butchers, all this will disappear.”
Richard Balson, manager of Dorset butchers RJ Balson & Sons, expresses dismay at the petition. “The people kicking up a fuss about this man have gone soft. They’ve lost touch with reality,” he says. “When our family business was founded in 1515, the animals would have been walked into the middle of the towns, where they’d be slaughtered in front of everyone,” he says. “I appreciate that it’s a completely different world that we live in now. But this is over the top – it’s the minority kicking up a fuss, and the minority have too much power.”
Danny Lidgate, from Holland Park butchers, agrees that the petition is based on a minority opinion, but it’s one he is willing to listen to. “There’s always going to be 5-10% of the people who take offence. They’re going to be the ones who are most vocal about it,” he says. Lidgate has decided not to hang carcasses in his window. Instead, he displays cuts of meat, alongside roses hand-carved out of animal fat and seasonal vegetables.
“I want people to think ‘look at those lovely lamb chops’ – not ‘oh my goodness, there’s a whole pig dangling in the window’. Lots of art galleries purposefully display shocking work to generate a reaction. Sometimes it’s a good reaction, sometimes it’s bad. But either way, it provokes some sort of reaction – and that’s what lots of people choose to do in butchers’ windows.”
In Framlingham, 30 miles north-east of the Borehamgate precinct, butcher John Hutton shares Lidgate’s opinion. Hutton is proud of his window display – but admits that he would draw the line at a whole pig’s head. “A good old rib of beef is a lovely thing to look at,” he says. “But a pig’s head … I don’t know, it might offend more than please.”
His reasoning is based purely on aesthetics, and is certainly not through any attempt to obscure the reality of where the meat comes from. In fact, his meat delivery arrives in a van from the abattoir round the time that children are walking back from school, past the butchers. “They’re not squeamish at all,” he says. “The whole pig carcasses come off the back of the lorry, and it doesn’t seem to bother them in the slightest. If anything, they’re intrigued, and their parents like it, because they know they’re buying meat cut from the whole carcass.”
Back in the Borehamgate precinct, Richard Nicholson, the assistant manager at JBS Family Butchers, is overwhelmed by the public support. The butcher’s window was a topic of debate on both Radio Suffolk and Radio Norfolk. The butchers has since been inundated with phone calls from people encouraging the owners to put the meat back in the windows. “Ultimately we’re just a small shop. Our priority is to do what’s right for the business,” Nicholson says. “We’re leaving it down to the public to decide – if they think that’s how a butcher’s window should look, then we’ll put the display back. If not, then we’ll keep it down.”
Emphasis, mine. People need to realize that meat doesn’t come in a nice plastic-wrapped tray from Tesco. Your steak goes MOOOOOO, your bacon goes OINK and your chicken breast is a stupid, smelly bird that goes CLUCK. These are not mutilated carcasses. Show some respect for the food you’re eating, for f’n sake.
