Why do I have to pay for a branch shop?

Craft Skills Scotland is a wholly owned subsidiary of Scottish Craft Butchers. It is funded primarily from income received from Skills Development Scotland. No part of your Scottish Craft Butcher membership fee goes towards training costs.

Scottish Craft Butchers is a members services organisation that exists to provide butchers with support on the likes of food safety, food labelling, health & safety, employment law, and legislation such as GDPR (Data Protection rules). We issue a monthly newsletter, produce point of sale material, images for use on screens, scales and social media, maintain a members only website, organise a biennial trade fair, run regional meetings and organise and publicise competitions and product evaluations. Advice is available at the end of the phone to all members and their branch shops. All this comes at a cost.

Cost to run Scottish Craft Butchers is funded from members’ subscriptions. How these subscriptions are levied is determined by the members attending the annual meeting held in November each year.

The members decided that it would be unfair, in that those paying for one shop would pay the same as a member paying for twelve shops. They decided that the membership fee should reflect the potential benefits available and the ability to pay. For that reason they set the 2026 fees at £420+ vat for first shop and £145 + vat for branch shops.

The main shop would be equivalent to £9.69 per week for membership. Branch shops therefore pay £3.35 per week to receive equal benefits as the main shop.