Providing the Best Quality Meat's in Dublin For Excellent Value for money By Laura Noonan


Thursday May 20 2010

WHEN JW Smyth started selling sweet and sour pork in the late 90s, the family-owned butcher's was merely dabbling in something a little exotic, giving its traditional offering a bit of added oomph.

Flash forward just over a decade and the sweet and sour experiment has become the cornerstone of Smyth's fightback against the toughest recession the 52-year-old business has ever seen.

Smyth's has just spent €75,000 revamping its Portmarnock store in north Co Dublin, giving more space to a "value-added" range that spans everything from sauced meats to whole veg and meat dinners.

A €500,000 revamp of Smyth's older Raheny premises is set to get under way in the coming weeks, expanding both the preparation and sales areas for prepared meats and meals.

Market

"The value-added stuff has really saved us in this recession," says John Fahey, who runs Smyth's, along with his uncle Willie Smyth and cousin Brendan Smyth. "From a starting point of zero, it'd already be between 25 and 30pc of sales."

As well as allowing Smyth's to play for the 'can't-cook-won't-cook' market that has traditionally flocked to supermarkets, the value-added range also allows the butchers to court the growing number of non-meat eaters.

"Brendan was making up a few vegetarian meals earlier," says Fahey, "replacing the meat with a bit of cheese".

It's a far cry from when Willie Smyth joined his father's business back in 1962, but the 69-year-old is all for moving with the times. "There's one (vegetarian) in every family now," he says. "We try to assist where we can.

"If we have to do more vegetarian dinners, then we'll do them."

The value-added range has also allowed Smyth's to do its bit to assist north Dublin's lovebirds, launching a ramped-up version of its regular meals to celebrate Valentine's Day.

The €20 package included "two big steaks", onions, pepper sauce, garlic potatoes, a "good bottle of wine" and dessert.

"Within three days we'd sold 160 of them in Portmarnock and 60 or 70 in Raheny," says Fahey.

"The supermarkets were offering cheaper full meals but ours was proper food, with everything freshly prepared on the premises. We got great feedback."

Experiences like that help Smyth's to justify spending close to €600,000 on refurbishments at a time when cash is in perilously short supply.

"It (the investment) is a risk but if we want to be the best at what we do and keep the gap between ourselves and the supermarkets, it's a risk we have to take," says Fahey resolutely.

"Our trade was beginning to suffer after the summer last year. We had a look at it and we decided to make the very best use of every square inch we had. That's why we're doing this."

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