It's all for the love of Butchery at James Whelan Butchers in Clonmel

"You got the white pudding, didn’t you?” exclaims my neighbour. “When we go to Clonmel, we stock up with about 10 of them.”

It’s a Friday evening and I’m home in Cork after my interview with Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers in Clonmel. It’s nearly 120km door to door but, over the last few years, word of this butcher has travelled far beyond the Tipperary borders.

It may have to do with the quality of the meat and there is a good chance that winning a Great Taste award for his beef dripping is behind this success. However, Pat Whelan, the man behind the current success of James Whelan Butchers, also puts a lot of it down to loyal customers spreading the word.

“My mother always taught us the importance of being nice, of receiving people well and working hard to develop those relationships,” says Pat.

“When I took over from my parents in 1999, it was a well-founded business that was based on a quality product and customer service,” says Pat as we walk the shop. “I started to make it relevant to the generation I was serving and acknowledged the generation they were serving, weaving my own thoughts through it to bring people with me on the journey.”

Unique Offering

This ethos can be seen in the meat counters. As well as the standard pieces that most of us are used to, you’ll find Wagyu beef on the bone, heritage-cured ham and Kobe-style burgers.

Whelan offers customers something different and more unique than most. That’s why the guys in Avoca joined forces with him and why he now has his own concession stands with Dunnes Stores.

However, to truly understand the journey that Pat has taken, we ask him to take us right back to the start.

My father James was a farmer’s son but it was my mother Joan who had the butchering in her blood.

Her father, uncle and great uncle all butchered before her. You know, people ask me when did I decide to become a butcher but it wasn’t really a big life decision, it was just something I did, a love for it and my mother talks about that love in the exact same way.”

Pat’s parents moved from Cappoquin to Clonmel in 1960 and the business was in his bones from a young age. “We lived over the shop, there was a lane to the back with a fastening shed, a slaughter house and then a little yard that we used play in. You wouldn’t get that these days, that’s for sure.

“So from the age of reason, I was standing in the lane as cattle were brought in from the country. The ramp would be dropped and the cattle would be put in the shed on Tuesday nights for killing on Wednesday. That was life.”

Neon Signs

Consumer habits changed in the ’70s though and Pat says his father was innovative and forward thinking, moving with the times.

“The shopping centre came to Clonmel and things changed. Suddenly we had late-night shopping and chest freezers, opening up a brand new way of shopping and cooking. It was almost liberating to go out and do your shopping after your tea. It was modern Ireland, a different Ireland and we embraced it.”

Pat Whelan took over from his parents in 1999 and he has led the company from success to success. \ Donal O’Leary

James Whelan wasn’t going to be left behind and on Ash Wednesday, sometime around 1975 Pat recalls, the quietest day of the year for butchers, he took Pat and his brother John out of school and they travelled to Limerick, Clare and Galway and back again in one day to visit the butchers who were embracing the neon signs.

“I remember them talking about the convenience aspect and how the customer was embracing it – it was all customer centric.”

Online Shopping

When Pat took over the business, he was the same. “We were doing shopping online when people were still buying out of catalogues.

In fact, I remember thinking after we launched it, ‘oh God, have we made a massive mistake here, do people even know how to shop online?’

But what happened was Digital – they were a global company operating here in Clonmel and they relocated to Galway, taking 300 staff with them.

“I still had families coming back to visit and popping in to get their meat while they were here. I was thinking I have converts here, they are living in Galway and the only thing between us is distance, how can I reconnect with these people? We put up our first website in 2000 and the transactional sites followed.”

A natural storyteller, there are so many other memories to share. His trip to Japan a few years ago, where he discovered the Wagyu breed, which he now breeds with Aberdeen Angus; the development of the James Whelan Academy, where he brings young people on a journey of apprenticeship; and even the look and feel of every butcher shop where glass walls are a feature and transparency is key.

Pat Whelan

Great Taste Awards

However, there is one story we really want to hear and that’s winning a Great Taste award for a product such as beef drippings. For those who aren’t aware, the Great Taste Awards are the mecca in food awards in the UK and Ireland.

Over 12,000 products are judged by 500 people, with only just 165 of those products gaining a three-star rating.

James Whelan Butcher’s beat the odds again by winning the supreme champion award in 2015 – the most celebrated accolade – with what would have once been described as a waste product.

“It all came about over lunch with my mother. Although mam and dad aren’t involved in the day-to-day running of the business anymore, I am still always running ideas by them, asking their opinion.

“One morning I got a phone call from the guy who collects the fat and bone, the by-product of the meat, to say that it was now considered a waste product and that he would be charging me to collect it.

Now, sustainability is a big part of my business and we would have been one of the first retailers to get on board with the Origin Green programme.

"So this conversation was on my mind and when I stopped into mam for lunch, I said to her: ‘What used you do with the fat?’”

“We made drippings,” she said.

“Whatever happened to drippings?” I asked.

“They fell from grace,” she replied. “But I still keep the drippings from the Sunday roast,” and she pointed over to a bowl on the windowsill. And there and then in my mother’s kitchen, she taught me how to make drippings, rendering them down, straining through a gauze.

“This really got the clogs turning in my head, and when I went home to my wife Lina, we started experimenting further. With the right combination, we came up with this really unique product. So we said let’s give it to people and see what they think. We had zero expectation but I was damned if I was going to give your man money for a waste product.

“So we started making it and giving it away. Then people started coming back looking for it, wanting to buy it.

“When we submitted the drippings into the Great Taste Awards, again we didn’t have any expectations. Then one day, sitting in traffic in Dublin, I got a phone call from a woman in the UK saying: ‘Your product has done very well, three stars in fact, and we are inviting you to London for the awards.’ Well I rang mam and told her to get the hair done, we’re going to London.

“When we won the Irish Fork, I was blown away, but when it was announced that we had won the overall, well, quite simply, it was the night of my life, celebrating with Lina, my mam and my brother. The next day, we were having lunch in Harrods with their food director talking to us about taking orders.

"Really, it’s what dreams are made of – and all this from what was considered a waste product."

The Future of James Whelan

Currently, James Whelan has concession stands in Avoca but he is expanding within Dunnes Stores.

It is my mission in life to share good food with as many people as possible.

"The advantage of working with Dunnes Stores is that I don’t have the capital expenditure of building shops, it’s a shop within a shop but it’s still James Whelan Butchers and it’s still our produce.”

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