Staying local makes butcher Justin a cut above the rest

It’s as modern and pristine a butcher’s shop as you would see in the most urban shopping centre, but Justin Flannery’s outlet in Peterswell just outside Gort is also old fashioned in the best sense of the word.

On a Friday afternoon, trade is brisk as regular customers come from near and far to buy their meat from a source they know and trust.

Justin’s butchers shop is unusual in that it is located on his 120-acre farm, down the end of a long driveway in the middle of the countryside. It’s also beside the family abattoir which was set up by Justin’s father in the 1970s and has since been expanded by his son.

Justin has an easygoing manner but he is a man who believes in hard work and planning. That approach has seen him create a successful business that supplies local people with their meat as well as restaurants such as the Gallery in Gort, Pat McDonagh’s successful fast food chain Supermac’s – where his mince is used in its Taco fries – and Magnetti Brothers, the Galway company that makes Italian meals for supermarkets. He also supplies the burgers for Kettle of Fish restaurants.

Justin’s father, Brendan who is originally from the parish of Leitrim and Ballyduggan outside Loughrea, moved to Peterswell after buying the farm from his aunt.

A self-taught butcher, he established the abattoir on the farm in the early 1970s. At that stage it was all ‘deep-freeze work’, says Justin, explaining that he mostly served farmers who came in with their own cattle or sheep.

“Dad would kill the animal, hang it, freeze it and give it to them,” he explains. But when Justin got involved fulltime in the 1990s, he realised change was needed.

As children were leaving home and family numbers were getting smaller, the freezer work was declining. So he adapted and, in 2003, this shop was opened.

“I started selling half sides of beef and lamb to people, who didn’t want a full animal and we started doing direct sales, too.”

At that point, the Flannerys also reared their own lamb – since then they have focused on cattle and poultry, but they still buy all their lamb from within the parish, he says.

Their pork comes from the award-winning Waldron Meats in Athlone, with whom Justin has been dealing since the beginning, while he also stocks Poulataggle organic hens’ eggs from Tubber.

“It’s all local. The furthest we go for a product is to McCarthy’s in Kanturk for black pudding and they are gold-medal winners.”

Justin, who is one of a family of four, always loved farming and when he left school in 1989 he followed in his father’s footsteps.

“The farming way of life is grand, I like being outside and I loved the idea of working for myself,” he says simply. As children, Justin, his brother and two sisters had helped their father in the abattoir when things were busy, so he knew exactly what was involved.

“You got a knife and you learned on the job,” he says with a laugh.
Occasionally, you hear tales of conflict between fathers and sons when it comes to inheriting family farms, but the Flannerys had no issues, says Justin.