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Shop Features
Prime Cuts, Cumnock – May 2018
A place of worship for over 1100 years with its own patron saint Saint Conval and made a royal burgh by King James IV.
William Wallace allegedly spent three months here and of course it is in the heart of Burns Country. The town grew as the centre of local coal mining and the father of the Labour Party James Keir Hardie lived a large part of his life here and is commemorated with a statue that sits outside the Town Hall.
Most Cumnock mentions these days seem to emanate from Townhead Park, the home of Cumnock Juniors and their famous bitter rivalry with neighbours Auchinleck Talbot.
There is no lack of passion in the town when it comes to football but that passion is mirrored at Prime Cuts, the town's butchers shop, which has just celebrated its first birthday. Here John Kennedy's staff led by shop manager Michael Cunningham, ably assisted by Marena and Julie demonstrate a love for serving up the finest meat and meat products to the locals.
For a town of 13,000 people to be missing a butchers shop was an opportunity that John Kennedy just could not ignore. John trades under the business name Prime Cuts chosen by his father Logan Kennedy when he founded the business back in 1983.
Logan farmed at Coylton Farm and his first shop was in Drongan. Five years on he opened a shop in Ayr and at that point John gave up being a farmer to concentrate on the meat business. More shops were opened in Mauchline in 1992, Colyton in 2006 and then last year in Cumnock.
The Cumnock shop is a smart, very clean unit in a new development on the east side of town. Close to the town's only supermarket, the unit was part of a new development and was fitted out using local tradesmen, Ayrshire Refrigeration and Colin Hewitson.
The shop has four cabinets and an upright freezer and was welcomed by the local community to become an instant success located next door to Greggs Bakers with ample parking to the rear. The new retail units greatly enhanced the trade of adjacent shops as well.
Prime Cuts beef and lamb are supplied from Border Meats at Lockerbie and pork from Robertsons in Ardrossan. Each shop is standalone and makes all their own products. That includes sausages, burgers, pies and ready meals. Michael claims:-
“It is the variety of things we do here that keeps it all going, the quality and the selection. Our customers like trying new things and that helps us develop lots of new products.”
A Pick n Mix offer of three for £10 is a great seller but the other Breakfast Packs, Slimming Pack and Family Packs ranging up to £35 are very popular as well. This attracts customers from outside the town, from New Cumnock and as far away as Kirkconnell.
Friday is usually the busiest day of the week and winning an award for birdies as a first time entrant in the 2018 Craft Butchers Savoury Pastry Awards has impressively boosted sales. Good publicity in the Cumnock Chronicle and Ayrshire Post positively affected all the pastry products even though Michael naively thought he could enter only one product.
Open 7.30 until 4.45 daily except 1.45 on a Saturday, Michael changes the displays around to create more interest in his displays. The business makes good use of Facebook to promote their new products and packs. Michael continued:-
“It is very good for us, we get a lot of customers sharing our posts. If we did not have Facebook we would not be nearly as busy. They see it on Facebook and come in and try.”
A quick look at the McBookies West Super Premier League reveals that 2017-18 has not been a great season for Cumnock Juniors but at Prime Cuts the results have been good, they have been well supported and they are always fit and ready to up their game.
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