Post by Chase Lane on Aug 10, 2014 17:03:10 GMT -6
I wanted to call this the Wild West Days of Butcher Town, but I humbly and sorrowfully admit that was before my time.
During the Late Seventies and half of the Eighties there were Meat Gang Lords. It was unspoken in most household circles, but was whispered about in the industry. Kaiman had the North Side. Pop and I had the South Side. Twillman was the go-between, whom we let shadow us, because he also sold us stuff, like R. B. Rice Sausages and Hollenbach Thueringer. Then there was Acme Meats, an upstart that undercut anyone they could, eventually raising their prices to the retailers far beyond what they were paying from Kaiman or us. This and my Max German post are some of the reasons I write now. Had people appreciated and supported the service they got, they might still be in business and we might as well.
As far as how things were handled, should Kaiman encroach on our territory, or vice versa, the other would get a call with "The Lay Off Speech!" Retaliation. Guns may have been spoken of, flat tires, knife fights, but really, all that could be done was to go to their retailers and undercut them. Not even the retailers, who got a temporarily better price, would win in the end.
Most of us had large and small customers, many times we'd wind up dropping off a block of cheese, and that would be all for the week. The wise ones (not really) who thought they could save a dime a pound by buying directly from Mayrose or General Foods, wound up with a lot of spoilage due to 250 lb. delivery requirements or having a full food service restock their stores on credit. When they were not able to pay back, things got refinanced until the store was in ruins. Mom and Pop stores by that time were not going to sell hundreds of boxes of cereal before they went stale. After signing up for eternal payments due to over-ordering, we would get a call.
"Can I get a hundred dollars of meat on credit?"
We'd give it to them and hope we made enough profit in the interim that we would not be screwed when they went out of business and didn't pay their final bill. Anyway, it was good for the cash flow... said mom.
Now I sit at home with a wonderful wife and two furry creatures thinking of the contender I could have been... mom and pop stores, I miss you so much!
Chase Lane
Stevison Ham Company Building in 2012, where our rivals, The Kaiman Family, stored their goods and operated out of. This was a very short distance from Max German Quality Meats, to put Butcher Town in some perspective.
Copyright Google 2012
During the Late Seventies and half of the Eighties there were Meat Gang Lords. It was unspoken in most household circles, but was whispered about in the industry. Kaiman had the North Side. Pop and I had the South Side. Twillman was the go-between, whom we let shadow us, because he also sold us stuff, like R. B. Rice Sausages and Hollenbach Thueringer. Then there was Acme Meats, an upstart that undercut anyone they could, eventually raising their prices to the retailers far beyond what they were paying from Kaiman or us. This and my Max German post are some of the reasons I write now. Had people appreciated and supported the service they got, they might still be in business and we might as well.
As far as how things were handled, should Kaiman encroach on our territory, or vice versa, the other would get a call with "The Lay Off Speech!" Retaliation. Guns may have been spoken of, flat tires, knife fights, but really, all that could be done was to go to their retailers and undercut them. Not even the retailers, who got a temporarily better price, would win in the end.
Most of us had large and small customers, many times we'd wind up dropping off a block of cheese, and that would be all for the week. The wise ones (not really) who thought they could save a dime a pound by buying directly from Mayrose or General Foods, wound up with a lot of spoilage due to 250 lb. delivery requirements or having a full food service restock their stores on credit. When they were not able to pay back, things got refinanced until the store was in ruins. Mom and Pop stores by that time were not going to sell hundreds of boxes of cereal before they went stale. After signing up for eternal payments due to over-ordering, we would get a call.
"Can I get a hundred dollars of meat on credit?"
We'd give it to them and hope we made enough profit in the interim that we would not be screwed when they went out of business and didn't pay their final bill. Anyway, it was good for the cash flow... said mom.
Now I sit at home with a wonderful wife and two furry creatures thinking of the contender I could have been... mom and pop stores, I miss you so much!
Chase Lane
Stevison Ham Company Building in 2012, where our rivals, The Kaiman Family, stored their goods and operated out of. This was a very short distance from Max German Quality Meats, to put Butcher Town in some perspective.
Copyright Google 2012