In 1995, Patrick Friend took a chance and opened a small butchery in Vryheid, KwaZulu-Natal. Few could have imagined that this modest beginning would grow into a meat-processing business supplying customers across South Africa. Today, Meatmasters operates across the meat supply chain, from slaughtering and processing to wholesale distribution and retail. More than 30 years after it all began, Friend reflects on the decisions, challenges, and lessons that have shaped the business he built.
Take us back to 1995. How did the idea for Meatmasters first come about, and what inspired you to start the business?
My father invited me back to our family farm after I completed a degree in commerce. My brother joined us two years later. We then had three people on the farm, and I quickly realised it was not big enough to sustain three families. I started looking for something that would add value to what we were producing on our cattle farm – at that stage, we also had game and timber. A friend approached me and told me about a butchery that was on the market. So I said, OK, this is something that we can run remotely; I don’t have to be there. We then invested in this butchery, and just by spending a bit of time there, I realised I could understand the meat industry so much better.
For about six months it went very well, and I was then approached by another friend who owned three butcheries. He told me about another three butcheries that were on the market, all in Vryheid. We then started negotiations and formed Vryheid Meat Traders, and by February 1996, we had seven butcheries. I was 32 years old at that point, and I suddenly realised maybe it wasn’t a good move because we had seven butcheries all competing against each other. So, if you had a special at the one butchery, the others would lose turnover.
What did Meatmasters look like in those early days?
In 1996, we had the seven butcheries, and it was a big wake-up call because what I had envisaged while I was farming, was very different from the reality. I then chose to leave the farm. My dad also passed away that year, and so my brother stayed on the farm while I moved to town.
But I quickly realised we had to transform the business to take our products out of Vryheid. We were looking at various options – one was the smokehouse, which was here in Vryheid, but it was a very small, bespoke type smokehouse with a German Fleischmeister. It wasn’t really in line with the market we were trying to create. I arrived at the conclusion that we must have the whole value chain: an abattoir, then the smokehouse, and the butchery.
This idea was still in my head when I heard of a chicken abattoir that had gone bankrupt. And having a look at it, I thought, well, it’s got all the necessary permissions and would be a perfect place to develop and convert into a beef abattoir. However, it wasn’t an easy feat! But by around 1998, we had the abattoir in place. It was very small and could handle only 20 cattle a day. We were still making heavy losses, but I still had the vision of a full value chain, from farm to butchery. However, we couldn’t sustain the loss-making at that stage, so some restrategising was necessary.
Something else that happened in 1998 was that my then business partner, Hennie Kruger, decided he didn’t want to be involved anymore. That is when the Thiele family approached me. They had been supplying me with beef, and they wanted to try and get a regular market for their pigs. So, they asked if we could work together, and I asked if they wouldn’t be interested in buying Kruger’s shares? The process was facilitated in 1998, and after that, I no longer had to worry where my livestock was coming from. The Thiele family were top-class farmers, and I had access to unlimited top-quality beef and pork.
This gave me the assurance that I could, from our abattoir, negotiate with wholesalers to be regular suppliers. We had certain customers in Durban who would take 200 pigs a week, and I could be sure that I had the pigs and that the quality was reliable. We also had a formula for the pricing, and that’s where things started turning around once the Thiele family became involved. And it sorted a lot of their problems out as well, because with pig farming, you’ve got X number of pigs that are coming out of the pens every week. It’s not like cattle that can just graze in the veld.
At this stage, I also realised that not all seven of our butcheries were profitable. So, we slowly started closing and consolidating butcheries until we eventually kept the best three where we owned the properties and could upgrade them nicely. We closed the other four butcheries and amalgamated their staff and market into the three that were left.
Starting a business is never easy. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in the beginning, and was there ever a moment when you wondered whether Meatmasters would succeed?
I had the vision, but for the first, I would say, 10 years, we didn’t make a profit. There were a few things that kept the banks off our back, but yes, I was probably driven a lot by fear of failure during those days! I think 2007 was the first year we actually made a little bit of a profit. And then I realised, OK, we can turn this around. The abattoir was the big driver for me, because over the years, we just kept investing and expanding, adding cold rooms and lengthening the slaughter line. We also started building a fleet of trucks to deliver to Durban, and we built some good markets in the Durban area.
In 2010, we were still making small profits, but we had a clear vision of where we were aiming. Up until 2018, we weren’t making a loss, but we weren’t making handsome profits either. We were just hanging in there! It was probably just the fear of liquidation that kept me going, and I wasn’t going to accept failure. Things really started to turn around in 2015 when the Thiele family got involved with another company called Pinecone Piggery. It was a startup, and they, and some other farmers in our area, invested in it. Pinecone eventually joined as a shareholder of Meatmasters in 2015. This changed things because I had another 300 guaranteed pigs per week, and we would really start flying!
However, this brought a new challenge in the form of bottlenecks – how many pigs could we actually slaughter per day at the abattoir? In 2017, I heard about a German slaughter machine called a Hubert Haas machine that automates the slaughter line. This machine can slaughter 60-70 pigs per hour. So, I went to Germany and negotiated. Later that year, we received our Hubert Haas machine. This really took us to the next level, and we could bring in livestock from more farms to boost our numbers.
From about 2018, I realised that our Achilles heel was the retail shops. One butchery, Natalia (now Meatmasters Butchery) was doing well, but the others weren’t hitting the sweet spot. In 2018, I also heard about the Roots butchery concept. This is a franchise butchery organisation with about 200 butcheries, mostly located in lower LSM shopping centres near taxi ranks.
I decided to go and see one of these butcheries for myself. I drove to a nearby town and was so blown away by the concept that I realised we had a problem if they moved into Vryheid. So, I had to be proactive. I got hold of the owner, Manny Ferreira, and started negotiations.
In 2019, we turned our one butchery into Roots Vryheid, and that was a huge hit right from the start. We then changed one of our other butcheries into what we call Roots Express, which is on the main street of Vryheid as people walk past on their way to public transport. This made it easy for them to stop and buy some meat on their way home.
These changes to the butcheries were game-changers and helped to make all parts of the business successful. In each Roots store, we sold 20 tonnes or more of cheaper Russian sausages, made in our smokehouse, per month. We also opened a small primal plant so we could bring in pigs from the abattoir and create cuts like legs, shoulders, loins, and bellies, and get them to our butcheries in frozen format. Basically, all the divisions started working together really, really well.
I can say that 2019 was the year my vision finally came together – the whole value chain from farm right through to the consumer’s plate. And that is the format we’ve been driving. We’ve also added two more Roots stores, one in a rural area about 30 km from Vryheid, and one in Paulpietersburg.
Meatmasters has grown from a small butchery into a major meat processing and supply business. What were the key decisions or turning points that made that growth possible?
One of the main turning points was when we realised how vulnerable we were to price fluctuations. We slaughter about 2000 pigs a week in our abattoir, but only about 200 of those were coming into our primal plant and to our own butcheries. The others had to be sold wholesale in a swinging format as carcasses throughout the country. We have markets in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal. So, our pigs are going to all of these provinces every week. But, if there is an oversupply of pigs, we have a problem. Pigs that are slaughtered have to be sold within 48 hours, and if there’s an oversupply, you have to be a price taker and possibly sell at a lower price.
Three years ago, we decided to expand our primal plant, and we finalised building operations last year. It has been a huge investment, and now we can actually primalise and debone about 300 pigs per day. It’s not something we do daily, but if we are ever in a situation where we don’t want to accept low prices for our carcasses, we can freeze the different cuts and hold them until the market changes. We’ve also added a bacon processing plant, which is a big growth strategy for us.
Why has it always been your vision to take greater control of the entire production process, from farm to consumer?
I think because I came from a cattle-farming background, I understood that farmers have always felt that they are on the losing end. They produce the top-quality stuff, but then they lose control. And everyone up the chain adds their markup to the product, and finally it’s the abattoir or the supermarket making the money, and not the farmer.
I was also on the board of a farmers’ cooperative called Stock Owners. And this was a theme that we were always driving: we need control higher up in the value chain. So, I think it was something that was sort of like a pet project for me in a way, but I knew that down the line, it would make us bulletproof. We’ve seen it now during the foot-and-mouth disease crisis. Many abattoirs had to close because they had a few months where they couldn’t source livestock. These are the challenges when you have no control. We’ve just upgraded our biosecurity protocols, and we have farmers we trust regarding their biosecurity. Our control has made us safe from adversity.
The butcheries are our “staatmakers”, – they bring a certain amount of turnover every month and create stability. At the abattoir, we can make good money, but it’s more like going to the casino!
As the company expanded into processing, wholesale, retail, and other divisions, how did you ensure that the original values and quality standards of Meatmasters remained intact?
At Meatmasters, we have a very clear value system, and one of our top values is that we honour our people. They are very important. So, whether it’s our customers, our staff, or our suppliers, we have always been driven by a strong sense of integrity and transparency in the way we do things. For me, that started with our farmers. So, we aligned ourselves with guys who do things right and don’t cut corners. Many meat producers will try to sell, for example, sausages and add additives about which they may not be totally transparent with the consumer. We pride ourselves on being respectful of everyone’s money, whether they are at the top or bottom of the value chain.
Everyone wants to be valued and not be disrespected in how they’re treated as a customer. So that is something we drum into our managers and our staff: if you wouldn’t eat something, why do you expect someone else to eat it? Once this core value becomes a part of your DNA, the rest is easy.
Looking back over more than 30 years, what would you consider your proudest achievement, or the moment when you realised Meatmasters had become something much bigger than you originally imagined?
I think this happened in the last three years. You realise when you get above 60 that you’re not going to be here forever. And for me, it’s not about anything other than leaving a legacy of some description. And to do that, I’m responsible for leaving behind a structure that will make Meatmasters last for the next 50 years. So as we say, we’re driven by our people; my staff is extremely important to me. I would never want to walk away and know that I haven’t left the company with strong foundations. With that in mind, three years ago, I brought Bernd Klingenberg, my general manager, into the process.
He is now a shareholder and also a director on the board. With this succession plan, I’m very confident that Meatmasters will last for the foreseeable future. I think for me, the proudest thing is knowing that when I walk away, Meatmasters is strong enough to stand on its own two feet and that the management team and the structures we brought in will stand the test of time.
You’ve mentioned the importance of people in the Meatmasters story. What specifically do you believe makes the Meatmasters culture special?
My farming background in this area means that I could speak Zulu even before I could speak English. I’ve always had a very open relationship with my employees, and I have an open-door policy with my staff. Everyone is welcome to come and have a chat with me. The result is that we’ve never had trade unions involved in our company, even though we employ 360 staff. It was only five years ago that I actually brought in an HR manager and created an HR department! I used to micromanage and think that I could run the HR department as well as the company.
Basically, the sort of relationship I try to have with most of the staff who built the business with me has been the foundation that is holding the company together. The ethics and ethos we have are all about an open relationship with all our staff members, and we expect everyone to give us 120%. It seems that everyone likes to go the extra mile for their customers and for the company.
The meat industry has changed significantly since 1995. What do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges facing Meatmasters over the next 10 years?
I think the challenge we had a few years ago was that most meat is now sold in supermarkets. Our idea to get into the retail side of it was probably not a very wise plan at the time. I then realised that on the wholesale and on the abattoir side, you had to create flexibility in how you market. We never see the supermarkets as our opposition. We make sure we do things well enough so we can have a slice of their cake by being a supplier, whether it’s with carcasses, frozen meat, or bacon. Evolving with the market is key.
When you look at Meatmasters today and think about the next generation of leadership, what is your ultimate vision for the company?
I would love to have a company that is farmer-based. So, we have a lot of farmer shareholders, because at the end of the day, our goal is to take the farmers’ product to the next level by making it a saleable commodity. I also want to build a strong management team and ensure they have the tools they need to take the company into the future. It’s important not to see everyone else in the industry as the enemy. Then you have a victim mentality, instead of an abundance mentality.
I think that will be very important for us going forward, where we collaborate with larger role players, and it might change how we do business. AI is something we are using heavily. It’s amazing, the reports and the amount of information you can get on, for example, the performance of your abattoir or your deboning plant. We actually are in the process of rolling out an information system that will help farmers as well.