Pauls Quality Butchers
The Business.....
About Paul......
Paul`s Quality Butchers was started in 2002 by Paul Conway, a local lad from Kilsyth. Paul gained working experience from the age of 13 years of age in the local butcher's shop. After leaving school, Paul became an apprentice with a local butcher, gaining experience in different butchers' shops.
Due to the financial pressure of having a young family Paul looked at ways of being able to support his flourishing family.
A £4000 loan from the Princes Scottish Youth Business Trust kick-started his career and he has never looked back.
Paul said, "I owe everything to the PSYBT, without its help I could never have got started in my own business.
He went to the PSYBT as a last resort, got the loan to rent the premises and has never looked back. He said, "The PSYBT has changed my life, it is not just the money it lends, but the advice and aftercare which is so important. My mentor was Sheila Devlin Thorpe, who came from a retailing background with Marks and Spencer and she has been invaluable to me."
Paul was set on the road to become a butcher when he got a weekend and after-school job washing up in Malcolm Allans at the age of 13. He did his apprenticeship with James Allan but struggled to make ends meet on a butcher's wage.
The loan and an understanding manager at the Royal Bank of Scotland allowed him to open in Kilsyth under his own name and that first year he was projected a £70,000 turnover. Hard work and a way with customers meant Paul achieved a £230,000 turnover in his first year and after 18 months he had not only paid off all his debts, but bought his shop and a house.
Initially he bought boxed beef which has a quick turnover but progressed to buying sides of beef and then to dealing with farmers such as John McKerrow, who supplied him with quality beef. He has only been buying at live auctions for a year and he said, "I am learning all the time, but so many people have helped me along the way, and I am much more confident now in selecting the type of animal I want for my shops."
This is Paul's seventh year in business, he now has four shops, in Kilsyth, Bonnybridge, Grangemouth and Kirkintilloch, all sporting his distinctive blue and cream branding.
Paul said, "The quality and consistency provided by a butchers shop is second to none and far superior to a supermarket which has to deal in volume."
He said, "A butcher's shop is a meeting place, somewhere to enjoy a bit of gossip and banter while buying quality products and I believe every main street should have one."
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