Darling Meat Market is an ordinary-looking butchery on the ordinary-looking main road of the little West Coast village made famous by Pieter Dirk Uys. But behind the scenes a meat-processing operation, the scale of which, for a dorp this size, is extraordinary.
There, in the factory section of the spotless meat market, a staff of 35 men and woman in hygienic mopcaps turn out meat products destined for more than 100 Spars in towns as far as Upington and other shops in the West Coast area. Four days a week two delivery trucks go off packed to the hilt.
“This was just a tiny butchery when my father came here to retire in 1982,” says Stephen Kriel, who with his brother Kevin, bought the business form Parker Kriel in 1999. “He had a huge butchery in Bonnievale near Robertson, but decided to come to Darling, where his sister was living.
Instead of retiring, however, Parker was soon doing deliveries with his car every Wednesday to Cape Town.”Butchery is in his blood,” says his son. “His father, James Kriel was one of seven brothers who were all butchers. We are now the 4th generation.
Now 74, Parker still works in the butchery on Fridays and Saturdays, and visits its township branch every day.
It remains very much a family business. Stephen’s wife, Susan, has taken over the bookkeeping from her mother-in-law while Kevin handles everything to do with computers and the all-important spices.
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