Butcher Joe's is ready to open in Highcliffe

There should be a butcher’s shop on every high street, so says Joe Willoughby who opens his first butchery on Lymington Road in Highcliffe on Tuesday 11 February.

Butcher Joe’s is offering the best in traditional British butchery alongside the premium standards and new practices Joe learned working alongside some of the best international butchers in London preparing meat for top celebrity chefs including Marcus Wareing, Phil Howard and Callum Franklin.

With locally sourced meat from Owton’s, the family fine butchers who have farmed their land at Chalcroft for more than 750 years, Butcher Joe’s is offering classic cuts beautifully prepared alongside some more modern twists with weekly specials and meals made easy, using seasonal fruit and veg, for the modern family on the move. In recognition of his customers’ busy lives Joe is staying open an extra hour on Thursdays so people can pop in on their way home from work.

Joe’s award-winning sausages, as well as his delicious gourmet burgers, are made on-site and he’s created a range of specially priced meat boxes including high protein, family-of-four, BBQ and seasonal.

Joe’s interest in butchery began as a 14-year-old working at Hunt’s family butchers in Gillingham before taking his first full-time job at the award-winning Udder Farm Shop, also in North Dorset, where as a trainee he was awarded the ‘South-West Banger’ at the Great British Sausage Week – a sausage that is now available to buy at the new Butcher Joe’s.

He then moved to London to develop his skills in a more fast-paced environment, working for the well-known Ginger Pig butchers before moving on to the world-renowned independent butcher’s shop HG Walter where he dealt with some of the capital’s top restaurants including La Trompette, Kricket and Patty & Bun, as well as the Rosewood Hotel.

In search of a new challenge he returned to the West Country to a small, family-run farm butchers and helped bring it back from the brink of closure, before being asked to open and run a new shop for Webster Family Butchers in the thriving high street of Southbourne. The shop built an enviable reputation for quality and service, earning the runners up spot for Butcher’s Display of the Year at the nationwide Butcher’s Shop of the Year Awards.