Meat_shop

Jeff Green | Mar 19, 2009

Martyn Jenkyn, owner and operator of M & C Meats with loyal customer Mary Ritter

Local butcher Martyn Jenkyn of M & C at Meats near Sharbot Lake has been in business for 6 years. His popular business, run and built from scratch by himself with the help of his son Chris is slated to go up for auction, lock, stock and barrel, in mid April.

Begun first as cottage maintenance and landscaping business, they soon branched into storage, and meat processing serving local hunters. The business ultimately became a retail meat and BBQ centre offering a wide variety of frozen local meat products, gas and propane BBQ’s and Thomasburg cedar log furniture to local clientele.

Martyn admitted that it took a bit of time to establish the business. “Once we got into the custom cutting which is the backbone to the business where we slaughter and custom to farmers’ specifications, it gave us the foundation to go forward.”

Martyn and his wife Gloria, originally from England also own and operate the Rockhill Bed and Breakfast in Sharbot Lake which Martyn recalls, “was the reason that we ended up here in Sharbot Lake; my wife fell in love with that house.“

Martyn then acquired the property where the shop is located at 12821 Hwy 38 in 2002 and developed the land which now boasts 4 quonsets.

Venturing into the meat business was a natural development considering that Martyn’s family had been in the meat and farming business in Essex county England for four generations since 1806. The family business there was called Webster’s Butcher’s and included three traditional butcher shops in three small villages in Essex county.

“In the ’60s I was one of the Saturday boys delivering meat to people’s houses. All the family was involved delivering meat on bicycles or by van. That’s how we earned our pocket money. When I left England in 2000 the business was dissolved through family shares because the senior people had died and the whole business got split up”.

Martyn graduated from Smithfield College, located in the largest meat market of London, where he studied all aspects of the meat industry in depth for 3 years.

According to Martyn the reason for the sale of M & C Meats stems directly from a change in his son’s career plans as well as his own personal desire to enter retirement. “We’ll put it up for auction to see if there are any buyers who would like to carry on the business as it is and then I will retire and make life a little more easy for myself.”

Asked if he is disappointed that the family business will not continue on Martyn replied, “No not really because you’ve got to be dedicated to the job.”

Son Chris, who recently married, has chosen to pursue a career in policing. Martyn admitted that this trend is more common than not. He explained, “Forty years ago there used to 30,000 independent butchers in England and today there are less than 5,000. And the average age of butchers there is 57 because no one is going into the industry.”

In Sharbot Lake his business is booming and at our interview just before closing time on Saturday 6 customers came in and each bought a large quantity of their favorite frozen meats products. The shop specializes in a high quality meat sausages, that come in a 15 different types, the recipes of which are Martyn’s own and he intends to pass them along to the new owners.

Other favorites are meat pies, burgers and a wide variety of BBQ and marinated cuts of pork, chicken and beef which come is small packages and value packs as well.

Mary Ritter, a customer for 6 years, stocked up on her favorites, burgers, sausages and meat pies and bought extra for her family in Ottawa. She told me later, “Martyn always been gracious, generous and very welcoming and he’ll be missed.”

Wayne Moase of Sharbot Lake dropped in and purchased his favorites, an assortment of meat pies, bacon and a wide assortment of sausages.

Both plan to stay on as customers since Martyn plans to pass on his own recipes and know how to the new buyers.

Thankfully Martyn admits he is extremely open to the idea of assisting the new owner until they are ready to take over the reigns.

The auction will take place April 20 at 6:00pm. Interested buyers can call Martyn or Chris for a viewing at the shop at 613-279-2204 or at home at 613- 279-3006 and can visit www.meatandbbqcentre.ca