The Butcher Boys

Farm to Table Bends a New Curve With Long Time Best Friends Turned Business Partners, Carel Serfontein and Danie Prinsloo Bringing the Butcher to the Country’s Tables.

- Kate Liquorish

The past year has seen a global surge in the emergence of artisan butcheries. There’s a movement towards humanely treated, hormone and antibiotic free produce that’s traceable right back to the source, as well as a “butcher-to-table” trend of butcheries-cum-restaurants serving up instant gratification at “cellar door” prices.

One such business is Country Meat. The guys behind it are Carel Serfontein and Danie Prinsloo. Their story begins with Carel’s father, Nick Serfontein. Although he grew up on a farm in Liebenbergstroom near Kroonstad, Nick’s family steered him towards a career in engineering consultancy. During his consulting days he decided to test the waters by buying 30 bonsmara heifers and 250ha of land. (Bonsmara are one of the strongest beef-producing breeds in South Africa.) Needless to say, he had the knack, promptly bought more land and branched into bonsmara stud breeding before building a phase C bull testing station, starting his own feed factory and feed lot and, in 2000, buying his very own abattoir that just happened to be called “Country Meat”.

Danie continues: “Carel and I grew up in the midst of this; on weekends I was lucky enough to fly down to the farm with Carel’s family where we spent our days shooting guinea fowl and getting up to mischief.” After school the pair went their separate ways: Danie attended the University of Pretoria before heading overseas to become an investment banker and Carel went to Potchefstroom University (now NWU) before taking over as operations manager at the Country Meat abattoir while doing a part-time MBA.