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It is a Wednesday evening and Darryl Whitelaw, owner of Broken Hill Gourmet Meats, has served the last of his customers for the day.
Just before he does his final check of the shop and counts the takings, Mr Whitelaw vacuum packages one last piece of beef.
His is one of only two butcher shops left in the Far West New South Wales mining town.
The third closed in late 2023 and despite a sign saying it would reopen this year, it remains shut.
Australian Meat Industry Council interim chief executive Tim Ryan said many small businesses were facing tough times.
"The broader economic environment does have its challenges — particularly, input costs are rising," he said.
"Like a lot of other small businesses, we're seeing ongoing workforce and skills shortages across the board."
Mr Whitelaw has a full roster but says it is difficult to entice young people to enter the industry.
"I think they want big money straight away, where in an apprenticeship you have to start from the bottom and earn your way and try and get up higher," he said.
There are also some issues with retaining fully qualified staff in a mining city.
"They want to go to the mines and get bigger money, so yeah, it's hard to retain good butchers," Mr Ryan said.
Mr Whitelaw says young butchers should seek to broaden their knowledge beyond the traditional tricks of the trade. (ABC Broken Hill: Josh Mercer)
Evolving to stay relevant
Mr Whitelaw said there was still room for artisan butchers and that there was a shift of focus to specialist knowledge.
He sends his apprentices to a day of cooking classes at TAFE so they learn the business involves more than cutting meat, making mince, or tying sausages.
"They learn how to do stir-fries, pan-fry, barbecue, roasts, slow-cooker, these days, oil — so they learn the whole lot so they can relate to the customers," he said.
"I make sure the lads take home food to cook themselves, so they know what they're doing."
Butchers not only need to know how to cut meat such as lamb — they should know how to cook it as well. (ABC Broken Hill: Josh Mercer)
Mr Ryan said this kind of training and specialist knowledge would help to keep butchers' doors open in the future.
"More broadly, some consumers shift looking for more of a broader range, different quality, and some of that specialist expertise that they know their local butcher can provide," he said.
First-year apprentice Cooper Pettitt has not done the cooking class yet, but he still has a go.
"I do a bit of cooking at home, he said.
"I don't mind it, but I'm just not very good at it."
Cooper Pettitt gets TAFE training while he is on the job. (ABC Broken Hill: Josh Mercer)
Training the next generation
Apprentices need to do a certificate in meat retailing through TAFE.
Mr Pettitt thought he would be putting down the books when he left school.
"That's why I left school and now I've got to come here and do it all again," he said.
"All the answers are basically in the book — you've just got to read and find the answers."
Apprentices in Broken Hill rely on travelling teachers to help them get their qualifications.
"They come out and do on-the-job training in the shop and then they learn the rest off us qualified butchers," Mr Whitelaw said.
TAFE meat and allied trades head teacher Ben Barrow said educators meeting regional apprentices on their own turf had advantages.
"Workplace training and assessment enables apprentices to learn on the job in their place of employment, reducing the need for travel time and ensuring apprentices receive training tailored to their employer's needs," he said.