‘I’m Birmingham’s only organic butcher and my sausages have been ranked the best in Britain’

Rossiters Organic Butchers in Birmingham recently celebrated 40 years of business and it’s been quite the journey so far for the owner.

After he worked part-time as a teenager, Steve Rossiter first started working at the butchers that is located on Mary Vale Road in Bournville in the 1970s, before taking over the business in 1983 at just 20-year-old. He then renamed it Rossiters and has since helped to develop it into one of Birmingham’s most reliable and most trusted, that has also won a slew of awards - including the best sausages in Britain.

Steve, now 60, says the butchers on Mary Vale Road can actually be traced as far back as 1934, when it was owned by a man called Thomas Newell. Once Steve took over the reins, he wanted to transform the butchers, and he says that as of today, it’s Birminghan’s only organic butchers, meaning it is the only one in the city registered as organic with the Soil Association.

“We’re located in a small local area so you have to ensure the quality is right for people to come back, because if it’s not then you wouldn’t survive,” he tells BirminghamWorld.

Being registered with the Soil Assocation means his meat products have never been subjected to chemicals such as pesticides. “This means it’s all naturally raised form free range and we also use local abattoirs.

“The intorodution of pesticides and chemicals was to produce more food for the demand in supermarkets and that’s the way the supermarkets have gone over the years, so we’re trying to stand up for naturally produced meat. It’s a premium but people are now more aware of what they’re putting into their bodies these days.”

Steve, who runs the shop and works with three other butchers, Melvin, Lewis and Dave, has received many accolades in his years of business. Rossiters were ranked as having the best sausages in Britian by chef Simon Rimmer in 2013, and he was also invited onto Chris Evans’ TFI Friday show in 2015 alongside Cheryl Cole, David Haye and Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon to discuss the health aspects of red meat.

The butchers has certainly come alongway over the year, and says he was inspired to turn the butchers organic due to a customer he had in the 1990s.

Back in the day before intensive farming came in, this is the way it all used to be. “Going organic was a concious decision I made in the 90s after a lady came to me with a dietary problem, and the only way I could assure her was what I was selling wasn’t going to affect her was by going down the own the organic route.”

He added: “After I spoke to the lady I was introduced to a farmer near Brinklow in Coventry and he gave me a walk around his farm and I fell in love with the ethics of it all. He helped me register with the Soil association.” In terms of his most popular meats, he says it can depend on the seasons, and what people are watching on tv.

“There’s always the go to general sale bacon sausage minced beef,” he says. In midweek roasted joints are popular and at weekends maybe pork joints. And then you get the good stakes at times when people want to treat themselves.

Although Steve has no plans for retirement, he says he would like to hand the business over to someone else when the right time comes as his two sons have chosen different career paths. He said: “Maybe one day an appreciate will come along and we could guide him through it. But there’ll be no change for the near future. I enjoy what I do and the customers are happy.”