AN OSWESTRY butcher, known to all as The Meat Man, has taken his business ‘into the 21st century’ by setting up a purchase kiosk.

Tom Brown’s business, in Willow Street, has introduced the kiosk, which he likens to self-service at McDonald’s, for people to place their orders instead of taking items from a fridge.

He says that this is down, mainly, to the impact on the business by energy costs but also felt it was time to introduce the new system.

OTHER NEWS:

He said: “We’re £5,000 a month for energy, and that’s before you even start paying any staff or insurance, for example, and reduces the cost of the fridges running 24 hours a day.

“Because they are 24/7 and there were other things such as wear and tear on the fridges too, plus other things like shoplifting.

“So we decided to not have fridges and just have a kiosk area, which is like what McDonald’s does, with the touch screens and you can still get your beef, chicken, pork and lamb, etc.

“Once you select one of them, all the items are in alphabetical order so it’s so easy to shop.

“It’s felt like that now we’ve put this into place, we’ve thought why didn’t we do this sooner.”

The business went full-time with the kiosk this week and says it has already been accepted by those coming to shop at the business.

Tom added that it will allow The Meat Man to continue to grow its online trade too.

Tom Brown, aka the Meat Man in Oswestry. Tom Brown, aka the Meat Man in Oswestry. (Image: Tom Brown.)

He said: “I get that it won’t suit everybody and there will be an older generation that might not like it but we noticed that the younger customers came in, without us saying anything, and straight away it was normal to them.

“We’ve had it alongside the shop to trial it and see how people got on, but we’ve had no issues.

“But our hand was forced a little as one of the fridges has gone down so we made the change sooner rather than later as it would have cost thousands of pounds to get it repaired.

“As soon as the order is made on the kiosk and the transaction has gone through, we can bring the order out to them within 30 seconds, which is incredible.

“I’m not sure whether this will take off elsewhere.

Get in touch

Share your views on this story by sending a letter to the editor. To get in touch email news@bordercountiesadvertizer.co.uk, or fill in the form on this section of our website.

“We started off with our main shop in Oswestry but 70 per cent of our business is online, which has been our natural growth.

“You’ve got to look at where your market is but we can still serve the people of Oswestry with 21st century technology like the kiosk.

“And with the money saved we can grow our online business even more.”