Mark Farquhar, 48, head butcher of Donald Russell talks about a busy day in his life
Mark Farquhar joined Aberdeenshire-based butcher, Donald Russell, 25 years ago. He has since worked his way up to head butcher, and is responsible for 90 colleagues, who butcher an average of 50 tons of meat every week.
My morning
I get up at 4.45am and head straight out, arriving at work for 5.30am. A strong cup of coffee sets me up for the day, and I check my e-mails and take a walk round the butchery to see what’s what. We have a team meeting at 7.30am, where we plan the day’s activities in detail. In theory, that’s how the day should then pan out, but I always have to be ready to think on my feet.
I eat breakfast, lovingly packed by my wife, at 9am, and the day just gets busier from there. I do a lot of spot checks on the quality of the workmanship. Butchery is a highly skilled job that takes years to learn, and I’ve got a bit of a reputation for being a stickler for quality. It’s fair to say that I’m pretty fussy. The way I see it, quality is what we’ve built our reputation on and is the reason we hold the Royal Warrant – and that won’t be changing under my watch.
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