T. 07768 654955 E. scott.walker@scconsultancy.uk
Congratulations to Charlie Munro, his family and the team at John M. Munro Ltd. on their centenary as a business and on their vision to keep moving forward as the next 100 years begin.
Founded in 1922 by Charlie’s great-grandfather, Hugh Munro, the business has passed through many extensions and expansions over the years with the Dingwall core of the operation being altered and up graded on no fewer than 14 different occasions.
There have been more than sufficient industry crises to negotiate during the company’s history, most notably foot and mouth outbreaks, recessions, and the devastating impact of BSE. Surviving any one of these would be laudable. To survive them all and to be ready for whatever the next few years may bring is beyond impressive.
Charlie Munro accepting a centenary quaich at the Black Isle Show in August from Quality Meat Scotland’s Chair, Kate Rowell, Chief Executive, Sarah Millar and NFUS Vice President, Andrew Connon.
Founded as a quality outlet serving local outlets, the business today continues to be renowned as the source of top-grade meat for independent butchers throughout the north of Scotland, plus a growing number of retail customers in Glasgow and the central belt.
There have also been a few special ventures beyond the company’s traditional highland marketplace. The 1970s and 80s, for example, saw regular shipments of meat to the London market and on into the surrounding area. First class travellers on Concorde were also able on enjoy sirloin and fillet steaks from John M. Munro as they made their three-hour flight from London to New York.
While such a trade was a far cry from the single shop in Conon Bridge where the business started, the company’s Ross-shire roots and family foundation have remained 100% at the heart of the success of the business. Currently run by Charlie (with his 88-year-old father, Eric, still following each new development of the business), the 2022 operation employs nearly 100 people, spread between six local retail outlets and the Dingwall-based abattoir and wholesale division.
“We are in the relatively unique position of being long-standing retail butchers ourselves while also supplying other retail butchers across the region,” said Charlie. “As such, the confidence we have in our continuing role as independent retailers in our own right, stands as a sort of confidence boost for others. It is also a business we know well, simply because we’re in it ourselves and can therefore supply our retail customers from a strong, personal knowledge base. It’s an approach which has worked well for 100 years, with a lot of good stuff along the way.
“Basically, we do our own thing as best we can, we keep investing and investing, and with the right energy and resources being applied to the business, we will keep progressing.”
With 17 apprentices attached to the company this year, the family’s enduring vision for the future remains as strong as ever. That’s despite Charlie’s assessment that current pressures on the industry are ‘at the top end of the turmoil scale’ in terms of his time in the business.
“Given the war in Ukraine, rising energy costs, post-Brexit form filling, and the squeeze on household budgets, I don’t think we’ve ever seen such a combination of things being thrown at the same time as we do at present,” he said. “The biggest crisis during my 30 plus years in the business was BSE, which changed things drastically, almost overnight. We did well as an industry to recover from that and carry on.”
In facing the current challenge, however, Charlie’s view tends towards a ‘back to basics’ approach, under which customers may need to become more accepting of whole carcase purchasing.
“The time may be coming when buying a single ribeye won’t be acceptable. Instead, retail customers will need to buy a whole roast and work on how to sell the rest of it. The same with orders for a rack of lamb. The answer could be, well buy the whole lamb and sell the rest yourself. Or, if a customer says send me a pallet of silverside, the obvious answer is why should I, as that will screw up the value of every other cut. No, no, just buy five sides of beef and do the work yourself.
“Ultimately, the meat trade has always been here to put mince on plates and to make sure people don’t starve. Anything beyond that in terms of added value is a bonus. Let’s not forget that we’ve existed for 100 years by taking good quality livestock from local farms and suppling good quality meat to local butchers. That’s been our foundation.”
Finally, a brief word on Charlie’s involvement with SAMW as a member of the executive council.
“It’s good, as a small business, to be part of the loop, alongside the industry’s bigger guys,” he said. “Industry decisions, taken largely on behalf of the big guys, filter down to us and are therefore also actually taken on behalf of us as well. Any lobbying to parliament, discussions with QMS or FSS, usually benefits us one way or another, whether it is restraining FSS’s outrageous charges or arguing whether such charges should be levied at all.
“It also gives us credibility across the industry in that we are sitting at the top table with everyone else. We generally all have the same hassles in our day-to-day business, after all, so it’s good to share the burden and the pain when it happens.”
“Thank you everyone for your good wishes this year. Sometimes it’s nice to sit down and consider the 100-year achievement and say “aye, we did ok!” Charlie
John Scott Meat, founder members of SAMW, trace their progress from 1968 to the present day
From humble beginnings selling eggs and cattle from the family farm to their local butcher in 1968, John Scott Meat has evolved into a successful family business selling Scottish Beef and Lamb directly to independent butchers, Smithfield market and high-end restaurants across the length of the UK.
From their facilities in Paisley, the company now processes 15,000 cattle and 16,000 lambs
a year, producing what the customer wants, which is not only important for the company but is something that is encouraged at farm level. This has involved moving away from finishing livestock at any age or bodyweight, which often results in an inconsistent end product, to focussing on steady growth on controlled rations, all built to produce a high value end-product at the desired size and quality, as demanded by the client and subsequently the consumer.
This is particularly important in the UK, where we have such variation in breeds and feeding systems resulting in carcasses often covering a wide range of ages, conformation and eating quality, which are hard to sell and quickly reduce the average achievable selling price. The company’s aim is to source cattle and lambs within a well-defined carcass criterion to guarantee a consistent eating experience, attract the highest possible price and help grow their client business by boosting consumer confidence.
Another benefit of matching the quality of each carcass with the requirements of each individual client is that, over many years, John Scott Meat have been able to establish which feeding practices, breed and age produce the best results for each end market. This invaluable information is often used by producers to adjust feeding and management strategies to produce a carcass that is consistently at the ideal weight, fat score and composition and achieves the highest possible price.
One example of this is the trade with clients at Smithfield who value a smaller carcass with high level of marbling and creamy fat cover. To meet these specific requirements, Simmental cross heifers are reared at grass before being finished at 22 months old on a 50:50 TMR mix of grass silage and a be-spoke finisher blend, containing high levels of alkaline Alpha Barley and Alpha Maize for colouration and marbling.
“The heifers have been flying on the new finishing ration, with excellent fat cover and grading out extremely well at R3/4L with nice creamy fat cover,” said Jamie Scott. “Carcass weight and confirmation were exactly where we need them to be and the heifers are like peas-in-a-pod, which is exactly what we are looking for. We even finished lambs ad-lib on the same finisher blend, with no signs of gravel, excellent dung consistency and the lambs easily achieving our target of U/R3L at 23kg deadweight.”
Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal has officially opened Dunbia Highland Meats’ upgraded abattoir and cutting facility in Saltcoats.
Alongside the royal entourage, representatives from Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), the Scottish Government, retail customers, and farmers that supply Dunbia Highland Meats were among those attending the opening ceremony on March 31, 2022.
Princess Royal with Niall Browne CEO of Dawn Meats
“It was an absolute pleasure to have The Princess Royal open our new facility,” said Niall Browne, Chief Executive of Dunbia (UK).
“We are immensely proud of the enhanced plant which allows us to process the highest-quality Scotch Beef products for Scottish, British, and overseas consumption.”
Kate Rowell, Chair of QMS commented: “The visit not only provided the opportunity for us to showcase more about the production of top-quality Scotch Beef PGI, but allowed stakeholders from all stages of the supply chain to come together and celebrate innovation and progress within the red meat industry.”
MacDuff 1890, a family business dating back to the 19th century, recounts its trading experiences in the post Brexit era. Andrew Duff, Director, MacDuff 1890, writes:
Effectively, since 1 January 2021, we have been unable to export our products to our long established and loyal customers in the EU. Why is this you may ask, well in the run up to leaving the EU, the UK Government gave precious little consideration to the impact that moving to 3rd country status would have for smaller businesses like ours, who have to rely on grouping products together with other exporters into consolidated loads to help minimise transport costs.
It quickly became apparent, however, that such groupage was fraught with problems once we embarked on post Brexit trading. Huge issues arose in relation to our EU exports with the groupage method which worked so well before, suffering severe delays as physical and documentary checks were conducted on all vehicles when entering the EU.
Andrew Duff being interviewed for BBC Scotland report on export issues
The extra bureaucracy, red tape and paperwork involved in such exports, alongside the delays with border checks etc., made it uneconomic for us to continue shipping product into the EU at the time. Many companies we had previously used as hauliers to export via the groupage method into the EU, were then refusing to accept our goods as they faced the very real risk of getting stopped for hours, if not days, at the border. And, just to rub salt into our wounds, we had to pay a vet to sign our export health certification, a step was added yet more cost to the process.
As we are a small business, we had to use groupage, as we cannot fill a whole wagon ourselves. Larger businesses who could fill whole wagons, and so avoided groupage problems, have still experienced issues with Brexit, even though they were still managing to get product into the EU post Brexit.
Furthermore, due to us not having a distribution hub in the EU, delivering to individual addresses/butcher shops across different countries in the EU made it a severely difficult task. Towards the end of 2021 there was only one company that was successfully exporting products of animal origin from Scotland to the EU.
So, what did we do instead?
With the EU effectively a no-go area for business, we decided to diversify by branching out into retail last year. We successfully launched an upmarket butcher shop within the centre of Edinburgh last summer, which supports a lot of local suppliers as well as selling our prime beef, lamb, and pork. We have also started to ship products out to Hong Kong through a UK based company that has links with Hong Kong. This is proving an exciting venture. However, the irony of being able to ship product halfway around the world but not to mainland Europe is not lost on us.
Is there any light at the end of the tunnel on the exporting front?
As of today, we finally have two companies that say they can potentially export smaller consignments to the EU. We are now working out costs and all the administration that surrounds this option so we can try get it set up and going again. So, potentially, MacDuff 1890 will soon be exporting its native breed beef to the EU again, although there are doubts at present as regards additional cost factors and the length of time since our customers have dealt with us. Whether or not they will be willing to pick this business up again, as easily as it was pre-Brexit, remains a key question.
Here’s hoping!
T: 07768 654955 E: scott.walker@scconsultancy.uk
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