Our Story - The History of The Kiwi Butcher Shop

The Kiwi Butcher Shop originally started life as Mc Cready's Butchery, a small retail shop built up on Brooklands Road in New Plymouth, back in 1954. It had a small open window display cabinet from which it sold goods to the people of nearby  Vogeltown and Brooklands neighbourhoods.

Back in the day Butcher shops were a staple, 18 of them lined the Main Road in Devon Street, New Plymouth. And 42 butcheries in total, were dotted throughout in every neighbourhood across the city.

In 1962, the shop was onsold to Ken Martin becoming Martins Butchery, keeping the same format of supplying the local neighbourhood. Cattle was grown on land nearby that used to help supply the shop. And Peter Morrison began his apprenticeship there in 1967, over 50 years ago. Peter worked his way up the ranks, eventually purchasing all the shares from Ken Martin, Ivan Berry and Harold Riley (Who had gone in to partenership over the subsequent years), and became the proud owner of Martins Butchery.

During the 1970's with the introduction of New Plymouth's first Supermarket, business began to dwindle. Peter made a decision to introduce Home Kill and looked to expand into providing wholseale goods developing a business focus on supplying bakeries and takeaway bars, keeping Martin's butchery alive during a time when their customer retail was in decline and many of New Plymouth's butcheries closed their doors for the last time.

In 1998 and after many years cleaning dishes, helping out after school and during the school holidays, Peter's son, Stephen Morrison offically joined the business. He served his apprenticeship working alongside his Dad. At this time there were now only six dedicated butcheries still left in New Plymouth.

As young bloods do, Stephen was eager to make Martins Butchery bigger and better, he thought they should grow the business to include increase their wholesale division and add in a larger retail shop. That meant we needed to move in order to expand.

In 2003 the butchery moved to Leach St, which is where we are still based today and the butchery name was changed to 'The Kiwi Butcher Shop' - This name was chosen to portray a traditional style of butchery in New Zealand at a time that skills, techniques and good old fashioned service was being crushed by mass production. We wanted to keep up with the future but honor our history and keep tradition alive.

Peter (Now semi-retired), his son Stephen and his grandson Jamie still all work in the butchery today and in April 2019, Stephen became the proud new owner of The Kiwi Butcher Shop - Keeping it in the Morrison family.

Some things have remained the same over the years, (like our Award-Winning Sausages) but we've grown and expanded with the times, (No dust on these bangers!).

In September of 2019 we quietly launched this website - Hosting our online store. Just in time for COVID so we could still supply our local community at time where they needed free contactless deliveries to their doorsteps. In March of 2021 we took our online store North Island wide and started developing our presence across New Zealand. Just in time for the second lock down which meant we were able to help more folks around the country. On the 2nd of October 2024 we opened our online store Nationwide and are now able to supply the entire country - Minus any lockdowns!

We cater to furry family members, with our own 'Pet Corner' where the Dog Roll is made in store and their bones can be found in the freezer. There are Rubs, Sauces, Marinades and a selection of meats cut for our Pit Masters and lovers of Low N Slow BBQ. we introduced our Value-Added Range, which are items like Stuffed Pork Fillets, Chicken, Cranberry & Brie Pastry Baskets, Shotgun shells and our own Sausage Rolls made from our Gourmet Sausage Flavours. 

We have expanded our range of Award-Winning Bacons to now include 11 specialist Bacons And developed new flavours for our Dry Cure Streaky Bacons including Egmont Honey, Sticky Maple, Candied Orange and Sweet Double Smoke. We currently hold the most awards for any butcher shop in New Zealand from the NZ Pork Bacon & Ham Awards - winning 5x medals in 2024 and 6x medals in 2025.

We are in the process of extending our hand punched Gourmet Burger Pattie and Value-Added ranges, and we have started our new 'Heat n Eat' range of meals including, Lasagne, Cottage Pie and Butter Chicken and are now making our own range of Gourmet Pies in-store so you can grab your meat and a hot pie to go!

The shop still makes Traditional Brawn, Swiss Roll, Crumbed Suasages & Beef Swirls, which are still a favourite with lots of locals who have shopped with us for the past 50 years.

If you come to visit us in New Plymouth, make sure you bring your chilly bin and stock up before you head home. Or shop online from the comfort of home or work and have your meat delivered to your front door or the office.

More than ever we are proud to be a part of the history and fabric of Taranaki. We would like to thank our loyal customers for their support over the years and we hope to be serving folks in the Taranaki and now all across New Zealand our Award-Winning Sausages and Bacon, for many more to come.