New Karratha butcher promises to be a cut above

A Pilbara family is confident a decades-long trend of customers choosing supermarket convenience over small-retailer quality is on the wane as they prepare to open a butcher shop in town.

Assuming all goes well, Rod, Ron, Shelley and Olwyn Snellin will open Karratha Quality Meats for business on Saturday in the Karratha City Shopping Centre.

It is not the Snellins’ first foray into the industry.

Ron Snellin was the local butcher in Karratha from 1988-1993.

“After that I spent about four years with Karratha Building and ... we had a butcher shop in Noranda about nine years ago too,” he said.

“We are doing this for family.

“Our kids are up here and we wanted to come back to be with them and the grandkids.”

The family were keen on keeping it local too.

When pushed to use a Perth-based fit-out team, they stood firm.

“We want to keep it as local as we can because that is who we are, that is who our kids are,” Shelley Snellin said.

“We just said ‘no, if we are going to do the deal, this is who we are going to use’.

“Thankfully, Vicinity saw that it meant a lot to us for Karratha Building to be used and we couldn’t speak more highly of their work.”

Olwyn Snellin said she was confident the presence of the supermarket duopoly in the shopping centre would have little impact on their business.

“The younger generation are being brought up to be more self-conscious of the way they are living and I think that is having an impact on where people shop,” she said. “Even in Perth there seems to be more butcher shops opening up again.”

Olwyn said the butcher would provide more opportunities for employment in town, as well as holding the potential for traineeships and apprenticeships down the line.