It sounds kind of gruesome, but Fraser Orr is most comfortable when he’s got a meat cleaver in his hand.
And the longtime Saanich Peninsula butcher and meat products creator is indeed happy again, having taken a staff position with the Market on Millstream.
“We’re letting people know I’ve popped up,” Orr says with his trademark lilting Scottish brogue.
While he’s been working at the Market for three months now, he says, “It’s all still new to me after 34 years of owning my own business.”
Ronald Orr and Son Family Butcher had three stores in its heyday, including the original location in Brentwood Bay, and was famous for its brand of haggis. But as Fraser Orr puts it, “a set of unfortunate circumstances” led himself, brother, Stewart and sister, Rhonda Hebb – they took over when Ronald Orr died in 2000 – to close the stores last fall.
When Market on Millstream co-owner Darryl Hein approached Fraser about getting back into the business and introducing the Orr family’s traditional recipes to a new clientele, he seized the opportunity.
“I’ve got the excitement back of cutting meat and stuff,” Orr said. “It’s definitely less stressful and it’s a real pleasure to come to work.”
He’s enjoying being just “one of the boys” at the store under Hein and meat department manager John Macaulay.
On top of regular butcher duties, Orr is producing the specialized sausages, meat pies and other products sold at the family shop, Hein said.
“(This is) just going to add to the mix,” Hein said of the traditional Scottish recipes. “I think when they closed down their shop there were quite a few people who were disappointed. There’s a market for their products and we hope to capitalize on that.”
Orr’s specialty items are also being sold at the Market on Yates, Hein said.
– Market on Millstream, 125-2401C Millstream Rd.; 250-391-1110
Market on Yates, 903 Yates St., 250-381-6000
themarketstores.com
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