 Sourcing Safe & Delicious Meat In Shanghai As parents, we constantly worry about what we are putting into our children’s mouths, and living abroad brings new questions and challenges. As guests in a foreign country we need to be more vigilant. From food quantity to food quality, feeding China’s massive population is no easy task. According to Forbes Asia “By 2050, China will import $150 billion annually of chicken, pork, and beef, as meat consumption surges on the back of the rising affluence of its growing middle class.” The is due in part to rising incomes and a switch from a rice diet to a diet that includes more meat. This has created huge opportunities for companies that import these products as demand increases. Shanghai Mamas sat down with the owner of Swiss Butchery, one of the most successful meat importers in China, to discuss how this growth has affected their unique and quickly growing business.
Swiss Butchery has been incredibly successful since launching on Hongmei Lu several years ago. What do you think sets you apart from your competitors? First, we don’t take success for granted. We fully recognize that every day we need to improve at little bit further in all we do and come up with new innovative ideas. This requires us to carefully listen and act on customer feedback that we receive (every comment is noted down and weekly reviewed). Food Safety we take very seriously. This starts with the careful selection of both our overseas suppliers and local suppliers, each of whom adhere to our strict food safety standards compliant with stringent Swiss regulations. To ensure a systematic approach to food safety, we continuously audit our logistics, warehousing, store and online operations for critical control points and hazard analysis. What is further likely to set us apart is our freshly and never frozen beef from Australia that we import ourselves and that is of the same consistent quality. Our grain-fed beef marbling score is MB2+ that is a quality that is even hard to find in Europe, the US, or Canada. Also, our sausages and hams are home-made and broadly cover all the specific needs of the various nationalities that we serve whether it be French style hams, American style pastrami, Germanic style Roast Beef or breakfast sausages for kids. Last but not least, it is our passionate team that consists of butchers, chefs, and meat counseling specialists.  This has been an exciting year for Swiss Butchery. Can you tell our Shanghai Mamas members some of the things you have been working on? We started 2018 with a big focus around sous vide style cooking, which is little else than cooking any raw material in vacuum sealed plastic pouches in a pre-set, heat stable water bath. This allows one for example to cook a steak at the exact desired temperature to achieve a perfectly rare, medium, or well done steak. Apart from the sous vide device, we prepared a range of pre-vacuum packed meat offerings. Then, we optimized our ONLINE DELIVERY service. Customers can now order almost our entire assortment online and goods will be delivered fresh and vacuum packed the next morning all across China. Finally, we made every effort to make this spring and summer season a runaway success for any BBQ lover. Apart from offering yummy BBQ meat like prime ribs, spareribs, smoked sausages, we also put together some indulgent BBQ platters that are hard to resist. Also, we partnered with Weber grill and will soon be giving away two brand new grills as part of a lucky draw for anyone who purchases one of these BBQ platters.
 Now that barbecue season is fast approaching, are there any special meat or grilling products you can suggest? To get the best out of your BBQ, one should look for meat that is well marbled, so the meat caramelizes. This makes our grain-fed beef offering perfect. I particularly recommend the grain-fed prime ribs (also called côte de boeuf), which is an iconic piece of about 1.3kg that is sure to wow your guests. Also, our grain-fed oysterblade is one of those secret cuts that is perfectly suited for the BBQ. As for our sausages, barbecuing perfectly compliments the flavor of our smoked ones.
Finally, I would like to recommend our spareribs and rump roasts as two great value items for the entire family that we sell at RMB 13/100gram and RMB 24/100gram respectively. When spareribs are perfectly slow cooked in the oven or on the grill, the meat pretty much falls off the bones. Also, our beef grain-fed rump is full of flavors that is sure to delight everyone in the family without paying the price for a prime cut.
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Sourcing Safe & Delicious Meat In Shanghai
Shanghai Mamas are very grateful to Swiss Butchery for their support as an organizational sponsor, and without them we would not have been able to bring you free tickets to our family day event last November.