Supermarket shelves stripped bare, but Bega butcher keeps customers new and old well-fed

Owner Allan Miles said getting meat to his customers hasn't been an issue despite some short delays of around a day or two due to staff shortages from trucking and delivery companies.

Due to processing all their own meat on site, the team at Bega Valley Meats is relatively self-sustainable as long as the staff stays healthy.

It is one of the few businesses on the main street of Bega that hasn't yet experienced a staff shortage due to the widespread impact of the virus.

Mr Miles said demand for meat and poultry products at his butchery had increased by about 20-30 per cent since the supermarkets began experiencing supply chain issues.

He largely put the increase in customers due to the lack of availability on supermarket shelves and some overflow from the summer holiday period.

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"We're seeing different people - we've still got our regulars coming in, but we're seeing a lot of people we don't usually see," he said.

"Usually Christmas time we're busy because it's just that time of year, and then after Christmas it usually dies right off, but we have seen a lot of tourists in town this year.

"I don't know if that's still got to do with supply and demand at supermarkets, and whether they're having to come into Bega because they can't get their stuff at Tathra or wherever they're staying."

He said in years gone by, Bega had not been much of a hotspot for tourists given people prefer to visit the beaches when they travel to the Far South Coast.

"But this year's been a little bit different, we have seen a lot more tourists in town," he said.

Mr Miles said that his prices were comparable or sometimes better than the supermarket, however he said his offerings always won on freshness.

"A lot of their [supermarkets] stuff is gas flushed, they use modified atmosphere packaging and stuff like that where it's the preservative in the actual packet.

"The preservative isn't it in meat it's in the packaging, so that's how they get away with it.

"For example, you should only get 24 hours out of mince before you have to freeze it, whereas they've got used by dates of up to seven or eight days."

The only areas Mr Miles believed they might come out on top were convenience and the availability of big discounts.

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"They have really good specials too and we know full well that they lose money, but they make it up somewhere else.

"I can't compete with those specials, I have to make money on everything I sell because I don't have other outlets like fruit and veg," he said.

On rising meat prices, Mr Miles didn't think it was due to the pandemic, but instead the residual effects of the drought and now the sudden increase in availability of feed and farmers scrambling to purchase cattle.

"Meat prices have been going up for months now, I think it's reached its peak, but once again because we're the ones that process it, we can sort of demand our own prices in a way.

"They can charge as much as they like but at the end of the day if we're not buying it, they're not selling it," he said.