About Us
My passion for butchery goes way back to when I was a young lad. Both my Dad and Uncle were traditional butchers with successful businesses in West London in the 60’s and 70’s, rearing their own livestock for their produce. As a youngster, I would often help out on the farm before school. I was fascinated particularly by the buying and selling of livestock at the market and even reared a couple of litter runts to sell at market myself (although not too successfully at times!!)
By my early teens, I knew that I had the bug for butchery and I was fortunate enough to be offered an apprenticeship at the famous Smithfield Market in central London. In the years after leaving Smithfield, I opened 2 very successful butcher’s shops in West London employing all the knowledge passed down from my Dad and Uncle along with my own ideas I had gained from my time at Smithfield. One of these shops still exists today and is owned by a guy who learned his trade with me. Eventually, I decided on a change of tack and bought a bed and breakfast business in the Lake District. Even though the B&B presented an entirely new set of challenges and was a really successful business, Butchery was still my life’s passion.
9 years ago, my wife Julie and I were offered first refusal on a house owned by a relative of mine in (a house that I had genuinely fallen in love with some years before). Naturally, I jumped at the chance!
After a short time living in , we had made a good set of friends in the village; one of which, Trevor Potter, was a cattle farmer who happened to mention that he was looking for someone to butcher his livestock for sale. I offered my services and in the coming months, spoke at length to Trevor about my dream of running a rural pork butchers and rearing my own livestock. To my complete surprise, I came home one day to find Trevor had put 3 pigs in my stables as a token of gratitude for the butchery services I had provided!
Some of the first cuts from those pigs were used at a BBQ we were asked to do at the opening day of races. We had drawn quite a crowd due to the wonderful aromas from the pork cooking on the BBQ (something that happens frequently these days at the produce shows we visit around the UK). One passing gent in particular was asked if he would like to try some BBQ’d pork. This turned out to be one of the most defining moments for Perfick Pork since the gentleman, unbeknown to us, was the late hotelier Paul Whittome, owner of the prestigious Hoste Arms in Burnham Market. He asked me to meet with his Head Chef at the time, Aaron Smith the following week with a selection of sample products. We now supply The Hoste Arms with a wide range of produce including half a ton of our Smoked, Sweetcure Back Bacon every week!
We have been suppliers to the Hoste now for over seven years and our portfolio of hotels and restaurants is continually expanding. The Pigs in Edgefield is one of our most recent.
In 2010, we launched our online butchers shop and over the past four years it has continued to grow and in 2014, we launch our brand new website with plenty of more features, news and updates coming your way including butchery videos, recipes from chefs at the restaurants we supply and much more. Find out more about our delivery and special packaging used to keep the meat fresh.