Butchers vs Supermarket

As a farmers daughter I would be very, very wary of supermarket meat and personally never buy it. A local butcher can tell you (and some display) exactly where their meat come from, which cattle market, which dealer and sometimes which farmer. I'd rather pay the extra (although very often the butcher is cheaper anyway) and know that my meat is traceable than risk Tesco or some other supermarket packaging which at best states "British Beef" or sometimes only actually states "packed in the UK" The way I see it good butchers are specialists in their field, not jack of all trades

Most butchers seem to be closed in the evening when I do my weekly food shop. I'm at work all day so normally shop mid week evenings and there is no way I would want to go shopping at the weekends!

• Better range of meats - for example our local does mutton, bilton, boerwors (both south african specialties - first dried meat sticks, second v. good sausages), good range of game (venison, rabbit, small game birds.....
• Great quality
• Good prices - and our butcher does have price tags - and often bargains too (for example we got a 3 1/2 kg pork neck joint for £8 this weekend!!!!)
• They're willing to do bones for our dog for free or very small surcharge (a pound or less)

I usually use the butcher, the meat tastes better and it keeps the local economy going. Also get a few freebies and sample now and again, you wouldn't get that service from a supermarket. My butcher also specially made some black pudding & bacon sausages for us

Personally i prefer butchers meat, tends to be of a better quality, I usually find this comes into play when buying steaks, steak chunks or side of beef. For meats such as mince find theres not a huge difference. Also have to say butchers sausages much much better too.

I use the butcher when I can. The quality is so much higher but I definitely don't save any money, they probably cost a bit more.

Do you shop at your local butcher? If so, do you save any money by doing so? Is the quality of the meat really any better? If not, why do you shop at a supermarket rather than a butcher?

I went to a local butcher today to get meat. Maybe I went in with unrealistic expectations of how much things cost, but I came out spending the same on meat as I would Tesco. The only difference is that Tesco (where I do my grocery shopping anyway) and the butcher are in opposite directions. To me, if I'm going to spend £2.80 (give or take 10p) on one pound of steak mince, I might as well get it in the same place as I would get the rest of my bi-weekly shop, rather than going to two or three different shops to get everything. The thing I didn't like was that nothing had a price on it. At least when I go to Tesco, I know how much I'm paying up front rather than wondering if the guy is just charging whatever comes to mind at that moment.