Sydney butcher Matt from ‘The Meat Man’ installed Australia’s first double fridge 24-hour vending machine offering fresh meat. Photo: Supplied
This Aussie butcher goes above and beyond to give their customer’s fresh high quality meat at a reasonable price – and their unique meat vending machine has taken it to another level.
Local butcher The Meat Man has been a wholesale supplier of meats for more than 25 years and won countless local business awards.
Their unique approach to get their customers 24-hour access to their meat at Narellan in Sydney’s south west might be what truly sets them apart from the rest.
The Meat Man keeps a fully stocked, double-fridge vending machine running 24 hours a day, giving customers convenient access to their preferred cuts of meat at any time.
One of the business owners, Matt Roper, said the idea came to him after fielding multiple daily calls after – or before – business hours.
“I’m here at 4am, we are open from 6am to 5:30pm, but we were getting phone calls at 5pm, quarter past 5 ‘can you stay open a little longer,’ ‘can I put an order in and pick it up,’ and I thought there’s gotta be a better way around it,” Mr Roper said.
The Meat Man’s 24 hour meat vending machine. Photo: Supplied
“I started doing a little bit of digging, I found in Japan and in the US they were starting to come up with these meat vending machines,” he said. “About a year and a half ago, we bit the bullet.”
It took some time for customers to get used to it – and they were “pipped at the post” to be the first in Australia after wanting a machine twice the size – but now The Meat Man is frequently inundated with customers using and praising the 24-hour vending machine.
“I just had one (a compliment) today, customers come in all the time or will see me around and say ‘how good’s that machine,’ so it does get a lot of compliments,” he said.
“The machine’s well and truly paid for itself.”
The Meat Man started out as a wholesale supplier for restaurants and cafes, then decided to deliver the same high quality to home cooks, families and event hosts all at wholesale prices.
In 2008, they took over the retail premises of one of their customers and haven’t turned back.
Mr Roper said the vending machine was primarily used when they weren’t open and was particularly popular over long-weekends.
Matt and Tracy, owners of The Meat Man. Photo: Supplied
“We aren’t open on Sundays, and long weekends it gets hammered, over Easter and Anzac Day weekend we ran out of stock twice so we had to restock on the Saturday,” he said.
With the region growing in popularity, the business and the vending machine was becoming more popular.
“We are growing month on month, especially with more and more people coming into the area … we get a lot of shift workers that use it (the machine) early in the morning, 1-2 o’clock as well as Mums with little babies or kids that don’t want to get them out of the car, they can drive right up and park out the front of it.”
The vending machine is regularly restocked with staples as well as seasonal produce including BBQ meats for summer and cuts like diced chuck for cosy winter meals.
It’s a unique take on helping locals have access to quality meats in store, while their wholesale prices compete with supermarket offerings.
The vending machine is stocked with the same staples in store, as well as seasonal favourites. Photo: Supplied.
“We buy in a different market, when you can buy right you can sell right,” he said.
“We buy a lot of things live and we cut out that middle man out that a lot of retailers have and we put out good reasonable price and good reasonable product.
“Some people think that’s cheap it must not be good, but people don’t realise there are cheaper things out there we wont buy,” Mr Roper added.
He also hopes to expand the vending machine experience to other areas.
“We are the only ones here in Australia that have the double sized fridge and we are thinking about branching out with the machines as well and placing them in places with high foot-traffic areas.
“We don’t want to cut someone else’s grass so to speak, but areas where they don’t have a butcher already we could install a machine and send a truck out there to stock it up.”