Spain

18% of the butcher shops in Madrid are owned by people under 45

Butchery

However, the number of young people working in this sector has increased in the past few years, according to data gathered by Carnimad.

Posted on Jun 25 ,06:35

According to data from Carnimad, only 18% of the specialized butcher, delicatessen, poultry and offal shops in the Community of Madrid are run by people under 45 years of age; a figure that drops to a scant 3% if we talk about people under 35 years of age. However, Carnimad, the organization that represents professionals in the specialized meat and derivatives trade is optimistic in this regard, because, in the words of its HR Director, Roman Diaz-Tovar: “the important thing is that the number of young employees Working in companies in the sector is on the rise and has increased even more since the start of the pandemic. This trade requires years of learning, so it is normal for its professionals to start undertaking after at least a decade as employees when they feel prepared and have saved for it ”.
Of those who are operating their own stores are locals and foreigners as well. Here is what they have to say about this business:

• "There is no age to start in this trade, what is needed is that the person has the desire to work and learn," Carlos Madrid. Carlos (31 years) is coming from a family that already operated a butcher shop in the area. At the age of 18 he decided to work in his father's butcher shop, where, as he says, he started from the bottom, like any other apprentice.
• 
  Currently, Carlos is a full-fledged butcher and businessman, who, in addition to knowing how to do everything, helps in the management and administration of the establishment and, very soon, with the retirement of his father, he will run the family business, Los Madriles Butchery.
•  "The person who wants to practice this profession will not lack work," Gheorghe Craiu, Delicatessen-Butchery Andres.
  Gheorghe arrived in Spain from Romania 17 years ago, when he was only 19. In the beginning, he worked in construction and then he moved to commerce. The first contact with the butchery sector came a few years ago when he started working in a butcher shop in Carabanchel. His boss, to whom he assures that he owes everything he knows, helped him from the beginning and continues to help him now in his new journey since November he has rented his establishment and is in charge of the business, which has an employed more.
• 
  He says he never thought of being autonomous, but he is very grateful for the opportunity, which he describes as "quite a challenge." Now he looks to the future with enthusiasm and looks for an apprentice to work in his store, although he assures that “it is really difficult to find someone with a desire, despite the great opportunities that this job offers and how far it can go. ”
•  "In the butcher shop you never stop learning, you always have to be innovating, learning new cuts... you don't get bored!" Jose Antonio Pereira, owner of Butchery Jose A. Pereira.
  Luis Ortuno, butcher and partner of Carnimad, hired his nephew as an apprentice 12 years ago, because he did not want to continue studying. Now, that young man who was starting in the trade, José Antonio (28 years old), has been running his own business in Fuenlabrada since 2017, along with his two employees, and has been in love with the butcher shop since the day he discovered it.

Jose Antonio has set up an establishment with a renewed image, has added new meat products to his range of products, which he considers essential to differentiate his business, and has opened a website. He also says that he uses social networks a lot to see what other colleagues in the trade are doing, because “in the butcher shop you never stop learning, you always have to be innovating, learning new cuts… come on, you don't get bored! And to be up to date, of course, specialized and continuous training is essential.”.

Since he started, he says that the most difficult thing he has had to live has been the pandemic and the year 2020 in general, "with very marked ups and downs in sales." However, Jose Antonio loves that this profession keeps him out of the routine and encourages all young people to bet on the sector.

So far, Carnimad representatives are positive about the generational renewal of this sector. Over the last 8 months, 60 students have gratuated Educarne's Butchery Assistant Course and all of them have already joined companies in the sector.

 

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