Next-gen butchers sharpen their knives at TAFE Wollongong West

The three-day course ran out of the Wollongong West TAFE campus and gave seven locals a chance to learn some of the skills necessary to become a butcher.

Benjamin Goodyer, 20, says he can see himself working in the industry.

"It's a very broad horizon, maybe owning my own shop, that's probably the max end goal," Mr Goodyer said.

Currently working at a cafe in Kiama, Mr Goodyer's mum encouraged him to enrol for the course.

"It's like: 'Hey, here's a butchery thing, go and try it out' and here I am. I'm loving it so far."

Labour Market Insights data reveals the number of butchers dropped from more than 17,000 in 2020, to just over 8000 in 2021.

Mark Wadsworth, who was on hand to help run the course, says it was designed to help "protect the longevity of the retail butchery industry".

"It's no secret that the meat processing and retail sector have been under extreme shortages for workers coming into the industry," Mr Wadsworth said.

"A program like this is a good short course to candidates some practical experience to come into the meat industry."

Demonstrations include how to breakdown different cuts of meat to be sold at a butcher's shop and other crucial pieces of knowledge like how to sharpen knives and how to use a bandsaw safely.

"Gives them transferable skills that they can use and apply in those different cuts and allowing them to essentially be creative," Mr Wadsworth said.

Part of the course included demonstrations from local butchers as well as visits to retail shops with the ultimate goal of pairing the candidates with employers.

Sean Gatrick, 30, who last worked eight months ago doing maintenance shutdowns at the steelworks, says he decided to give the course a go after hearing from butchers about their work.

"I got to a point in my where I wanted to just try something new and honestly, it just jumped out as something that a lot of people are passionate about," Mr Gatrick said.

"I've been around a lot of tradies and not really many tradies speak of their job as passionately as all the butchers I've seen."