MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Cameron Harrison Butchery
COVID hit many businesses and industries hard, but from these tough times there has been some good news stories. Cameron Harrison Butchery talks to us about how they got through the tough times and what opportunities have since opened up for them.
What was the business direction/plan pre COVID?
Pre-COVID our focus was to grow our business and double our turn-over within three years.
To strive to meet this target, we set up a ‘low and slow’ BBQ catering service and up a pop-up butchery - basing ourselves at local farmers markets where people could sample and purchase our products. This gave us the opportunity to promote our brand in a city where we didn’t have a butchery site yet.
This worked really well, and we saw steady growth - both at the markets and with catering bookings. We also experienced overall customer growth at existing stores, with people travelling to shop in our three other butcheries at the time.
How did you then change things up to get through this period?
Once COVID hit, we were forced to close all three of our butcheries to the public. This turned our focus to home deliveries, whilst our factory kept producing products for our main wholesale customers (supermarkets and hospitals).
After the first COVID lockdown, we unfortunately had to close our Kelburn butchery. This was due to staff leaving to work at supermarkets, assuming that would provide more job security in these uncertain times.
We then restricted our wholesale customers and focused on our retail division and invested further in developing our website.
Due to the growth of our online presence we picked up a lot of new customers through the first lockdown, and to accommodate the new customer base we opened up another butchery in Lower Hutt, six months later!
When the second lockdown hit, we knew what to do as we’d been here before and had all the required processes in place. We closed all three of our butcheries and started delivering to our customers’ homes the very next day.
With the new website up and running, we were able to process and deliver three times as many orders, every day (compared to the first lockdown). Our processes and efficiency had greatly improved!
Once again, we picked up many more customers around the Wellington region. To capitalise on this growth, we then opened our 4th butchery in Seatoun this year!
We hear you have recently got into the homekill/wild game market. How did this come about?
Our Lower Hutt site had an existing MPI licence for recreational catch (from the previous butchery we purchased) so we could now target wild game/home kill customers.
As our existing customer base is 85% female, we set-up a separate brand (Cameron Harrison WILD GAME Producers) and Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/cameronharrisonWILDGAME to target the predominately male audience with hunting/farming and wild game interests.
To further promote this service (and our products) direct to the customer base (hunters and farmers), we teamed up with local businesses and associations such as NZ Deerstalkers & Trap and Trigger. This also provided a way to give back to the community - meat donated to us from Trap & Trigger culls is processed into mince and sausages and donated to local charities.
Over the last 18 months we have focused on growing the wild game division as well as the retail division and can confirm that the business turnover and value has more than doubled what it was two years ago!
How has your staffing changed as you’ve grown?
Over the past two years we have taken on four new apprentices (two female and two male), and of our 16 staff, we now employ six females - all in key roles within the business.
By constantly investing in the team and their growth, we are able to train each person up in a variety of roles and bring in apprentices. With the team constantly rotating through roles and sites, this helps to keep the work environment energetic and challenging. Staff have said they find this rewarding as they are never stuck in one role and location for too long.
Not only does this create a healthy and dynamic work environment, but it also future proofs the business because there isn’t the risk of relying on certain members to only cover certain roles. There is always at least three team members who can successfully carry out a specific important task at any given time.
How do you advertise and use social media?
We split our advertising budget over newsprint, radio promotions, Facebook, Instagram and local sponsorships of fundraisers and events.
We also invest a lot of time and energy into product development and sourcing as much local produce as possible in our products. As an example, we use locally grown coriander in our Gold medal winning ‘Pork, Coriander & Pepperdew Meatball’.
Our advertising is focussed on our latest awards (i.e. the five medals we won in this year’s Great NZ Sausage Competition), new products and our diverse team, as well as our social responsibility campaigns - where we give back to the local community and support both nationwide and international causes.
This promotes our ethics and brand reputation, as well as our high-quality products.
To conclude
In these times, where food prices and the cost of living is soaring, we have been lucky enough to see our business continue to grow, with more customers appreciating our products and services - choosing to support local and shop with us instead of the big chain supermarkets.
We’re proud to say that since COVID our business has more than doubled in size, turnover and value - going from a 2.5 million turnover in 2020 to now currently 5.8 million in 2022.
This is the result of constantly re-investing in the business, our online presence and our team. Our staff are instrumental in the success and we are continuously looking into new and better ways to train, execute, drive and motivate our team further.
Keep investing in your business and adapting to the changing times and trends. If you focus on maintaining a positive mindset and heathy work environment for you and your team, you can continue to thrive!
