They happily answer to the “Dad’s Army” tag but three of the butchers at Foster’s Foodland supermarket in Millicent are willing to share more than 200 years of combined life experience with their colleagues and customers.
Staff shortages since October have prompted Peter Cusack (aged 74) and Brian Foster (67) to come out of retirement and join 62-year-old staff employee David Clapham and two others in the meat preparation.
Each work day they can be seen making sausages, slicing prime cuts and performing other tasks.
Butchers are generally known to have a genial nature and this senior trio is no exception.
Peter can trace his involvement in butchering to his days as a teenage apprentice almost six decades ago to Jim Maney in his shop on Shepherdson Road, Mount Gambier. Later in his working life, Peter worked in hospitality in the Blue Lake city.
He still lives in Mount Gambier and has been the back-up butcher at Foster’s Foodland for a number of years. “I have to be out of bed at 4.30am to be here to start work at 6am,” Peter said. “I will only stop working when they do not want me anymore.”
For Brian, his association with the family business dates back to his teenage years when he joined just after it opened its purpose-built premises in Kentish Place in 1970.
His late father Bob Foster had begun the retailing dynasty in 1947 with a general store in his hometown of Rendelsham.
After completing his trade apprenticeship and working as a butcher, Brian moved into managerial roles. He retired as manager in 2019 but occasionally helps in the store.
“It (working as a butcher) is coming back to me but I am a bit slow,”’ Brian said. “We need to have five butchers as 90% of our meat lines are prepared here.”
Like his long-time boss, David’s association with the store began as a teenager in the 1970s.
After working in general supermarket duties, David began his apprenticeship as a butcher in 1974 and has been there ever since.
The retail butcher scene has declined in Millicent and district over the past 50 years.
Butcher shops have long closed at Tantanoola and Beachport while nowadays Millicent only has one stand-alone shop in George Street and Foster’s Foodland.
Nevertheless, the demand for quality meat continues and provides plenty of work for “Dad’s Army”.
