Mangawhai Meat Shop owner Dan Klink. Photos / John Stone
The sharpest butchers in the North are not stopping at coming first in industry competitions or being touted as one of New Zealand's best gourmet online meat sellers.
The award-winning Mangawhai Meat Shop is encouraging customers to bring in their own containers and has initiated a swap system to ensure containers are blasted through the shop's sanitisation process to meet hygiene requirements.
Dan Klink, who owns the shop with his wife Angie, has purchased a large number of reusable containers and for $5 people can sign up for the container swap. Klink provides a reusable shopping bag and a meat-storage container which customers bring back when they next shop.
He has enough containers on hand that he can give them a new container each time, and can wash the returned ones. The environment-conscious, plastic-bag-reduction scheme doesn't mean people have to take their purchases away in old plastic bread bags, he said.
As well as conforming to the single-use plastic bag ban which came into effect on July 1, the shop's practise enables it to cut down on paper wrapping. It also uses only recyclable trays.
"People seem to love it," Klink said.
He said while he and Angie are personally dedicated to the waste-minimisation ethic, "there's also a big push for it around town in general"'.
His environmental concerns began while growing up in South East Asia, and subsequent visits to that region provided even more shocking pollution and environmental damage caused by discarded plastic and other waste.
When the Klinks set up their butchery seven years ago they were open to people bringing their own containers - which about 30 per cent of customers did. But many would forget to bring them in or would sometimes bring in unsuitable containers, which is why Klink launched the new scheme which went live on July 1, at the start of the Plastic Free Aotearoa July Challenge (https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/).
The Klinks' efforts to make a difference to their community's waste footprint includes Mangawhai Meat Shop selling milk in glass bottles.
"We pride ourselves on being cutting edge," Klink said, almost keeping a straight face.
Since 2012, the shop has won five places, including gold and supreme winner, in the Devro New Zealand Sausage Awards. Klink was runner-up in the 2016 Alto Young Butcher of the Year, and this year is the mid-to-tip North Island regional champion in the Butcher of the Year competition.
He won the regional gong with his "flexitarian burger" — a Mexican-inspired beef and bean burger with 70 per cent vegetable protein: "It appeals to the modern consumer."
Klink will compete for the national title against winners in the three other regions in a knife-edge final in Auckland on August 8.
Adding to the butchery-deli's kudos, apprentice Dylan Thompson tied in first place for the 2019 ANZCO Foods Butcher Apprentice of the Year in the regional competition and will also compete for the national title in Auckland.
The shop's online service is well used by weekend and holiday incomers to Mangawhai who can order ahead of their arrival, or the shop delivers — promising that service to anywhere in New Zealand.
Klink said while it's important and challenging for the butchery to keep abreast of cuisine trends and industry advances, nothing beats good old-fashioned, top-quality product and service — which has at the top of the order sharing a cheery g'day with the customers.
• Northland businesses come in all shapes and sizes. If you have a business story to share please contact Lindy Laird, Ph 09 470 2801, or email lindy.laird@northernadvocate.co.nz