Ben’s shop a cut above

Red Cliffs’ only butcher shop has been serving up high quality, award winning meat for the past three and a half years. Here Sionnie Kelly talks to Red Cliffs Butchery owner Ben Gathercole about why he decided to open a store in his home town. Picture: Carmel Zaccone

RED Cliffs Butchery has become a popular place for residents to pick up some meat, and even veggies, each week.

The shop can be found on Ilex Street and offers a wide variety of meat cuts and even award winning sausages.

The butcher behind the store is Ben Gathercole who has more than 20 years experience in the industry.

Ben spent 18 years working for Ian Buffon Butcher on Deakin Avenue but always wanted to start a his own business in his hometown.

“There wasn’t a butcher shop out here and I was born and bred out here and thought, ‘well it’s time to try something’,” he says.

The store has been operating for three and a half years and, although it is not a one-stop shop for everything, there are still a lot of different products available.

Watermelons and pumpkins are ready to purchase, as are locally made preserves and sauces. 

Ben says the support he received from the Red Cliffs community when he first opened the shop was amazing.

And it isn’t just Red Cliffs people who make the trip to shop there.

“We get quite a few people from in town that wander in,” he says.

“There’s a lot of unique shops out here and gives people an excuse to come out here. It’s worth the drive.”

Ben isn’t sure why he became a butcher.

“It was something I always had in my head,” he said.

“I left school at 16 and that’s what I did.”

These days he is quite content with his shop and has experienced a successful few years.

He says one of the best parts of his job is seeing his regular customers.

The customer interactions also gives Ben the chance to share his knowledge of different cuts of meat.Often a customer might come in with a recipe they would like to try and Ben is always happy to help.

“A lot of the recipes in the books have chefs who aren’t actually buying the meat,” he says.

“People come in saying, they want this but they don’t really – not for what they’re making. But we give them alternatives.”

Ben prides himself on having good quality Australian meat.

“All our small goods are made here, we don’t buy anything in,” he says. “So bacon, hams, savs, kabana, all our sausages are all made in-house here.”

Recently Red Cliffs Butchery proved just how good it was with its small goods by taking out gold for its continental sausage at the Australian Meat Industry Regional Sausage King competition for North West Victoria.

The shop also received a bronze for its cheese cabana.

Ben says the continental sausage is very popular and a lot of time went into perfecting it. 

This means many people got to try different versions of the pork sausage before it was finally perfected with its “secret herbs and spices” blend.

“We played around with it a few years ago and tried to get something good, it was trial and error for a little while,” Ben admits.

But now that pork sausage has gone on to take out gold two years in a row at the Sausage King competition so Ben’s feeling pretty confident he’s created a truly winning blend.

If you’re not interested in award winning sausages the Red Cliffs Butchery has plenty more to offer.

Ben knows that many people lead busy lives and that’s why he is happy to offer his customers cooked roasts and easy to prepare cuts.

“If someone wants a roast leg of lamb for tea just give us a ring in the morning and pick it up at 5.30pm that night,” he says.

“We also cater with roasts for functions.”

Because of the roast option, Christmas and Easter are now the busiest times of year for Red Cliffs Butchery and they’re gearing up for a rush next month.