The 17th Cleaver Awards recognised South Africa’s best butcheries, with two of the top butcheries in the Eastern Cape being from Kariega and one of them receiving its 10th award.
The Cleaver Awards, a Red Meat Industry Forum initiative, are held annually to recognise the country’s best butcheries based on quality, service, hygiene, and value for money. This year’s awards, once again supported by Freddy Hirsch, honoured the top butcheries from both 2020 and 2021.
The awards have become respected by consumers countrywide as a seal of approval. This is primarily because butcheries, once they have entered, cannot nominate themselves, as the awards are given based on customer votes.
Cuyler Butchery in Kariega received its 10th Cleaver Award at the event.
“It is due to years of hard work and dedicated service to the public. Indirectly it actually is the public thanking us for the quality products we offer them, as they voted for us,” said Leon Slabbert, owner of Cuyler Butchery.
“In return, I would like to honour and thank the public and especially our clients for their support and votes. Receiving this award inspires us to offer even more affordable products and better service.”
Slabbert said he detested stagnation and therefore revamped the butchery during 2021, offering more products on the shelves, doubling the number of tills from four to eight and expanding to now also include a bottle store.
“We offer things from vegetables, a deli, milk products, basic groceries, a large variety of meat products to a specialised biltong stall with an express till,” said Slabbert.
All butcheries that receive over 100 votes were anonymously audited by The South African Meat Industry Company (SAMIC) against an extensive 212-point checklist.
“With lockdowns, changes in demand and shifts in consumer behaviour, our butcheries have had to become increasingly agile, in some instances transforming their approaches and accommodating new ways of business. And even though many were hit hard due to the pandemic, these Cleaver Awards confirm that our butcheries are still very much worth their beef,” said Dewald Olivier, executive officer of The South African Feedlot Association (SAFA).
Several common attributes among the winning butcheries have been reinforced, including training and upliftment of staff, a passion for the business, and above all else, customer-centricity, being core to any successful butchery.
The top Eastern Cape butcheries are:
4 and more tills:
Cuyler Butchery, Kariega – Platinum award
Meat Market:
Levyvale SuperSpar, Kariega – Platinum award
Swartkops Spar, PE – Platinum
Debi Lee SuperSpar, East London – Gold.
