IT turns out the butchering trade is just as addictive as the meat produced by the team at Gary Hine's Mundaring butcher store, The Naked Butcher.
Accompanying Mr Hine is qualified butcher Bailey Milich, third-year apprentice Jordan Styles and first-year apprentice Mitchell Oldfield.
Wife Kirsten Janke takes care of the accounts side of the business while their daughter Jana takes care of the online orders and the online marketing aspect of business.
The Naked Butcher very much reflects its name, realistically, what's more natural than being naked?
The business prides itself on sourcing only grassfed beef, as well as all of their other meats - producing organic, free range, gluten-free meats that are free of hormones, growth promotants, antibiotics and other harmful ingredients.
This means that all the stock bought into the butcher shop has been raised on an entirely natural diet on sustainable properties that are free of pesticides and herbicides.
With a clean and fresh approach, not only are the meats gluten-free, but all the marinates and other products are gluten-free due to certain clientele being sensitive to gluten, preservatives, food colourings and some additives.
Mr Hine is no stranger to the meat industry, with 40 years of experience under his butcher's belt.
The talented meat master competed in the Australian butchering team at the tri-nations butchery competition in both 2013 and 2014, in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
The award-winning butcher shop is many things - from an educational perspective for the staff, a place where some of Perth's finest meats are finished and everything in between, and the long line of awards it has received is proof of that.
The Naked Butcher has won the local chamber of commerce small business of the year award, small business of the year award and retail business of the year award, multiple times each.
After trying to leave the industry years ago, Mr Hine admitted it was hard to walk away from it.
"Once it's in your blood, it's not something that's easy to just quit," he said.
Mr Hine was born and bred in rural Queensland where he started his apprenticeship in the Lockyer Valley at a store called Lowood Butchery.
"Being in the industry is always something I wanted to do growing up," he said.
"I was fortunate because my boss owned a slaughter yard as well, so I got the best of both worlds in that sense.
"I was able to learn retail butchering as well as becoming a qualified slaughterman and small goodsman, which isn't all that common these days."
After finishing his apprenticeship and butchering in the Northern Territory, Mr Hine found himself buying the Mundaring butcher shop in 2007.
Since then, Mr Hine has seen his customer base constantly multiply and service a large part of Western Australia.
The business delivers from suburb Butler to Mandurah, spread out into three trips per week depending on the zone, and services as far south as Albany and as far north as Karratha, with the inclusion of their clients out east, at Kalgoorlie.
Since COVID-19 began affecting shop owners in 2020, the business closed down its shop front and now operates completely online, using the Mundaring premises only to cut and process caracases.
It uses a shopping platform called Shopify which allows customers to pick and purchase The Naked Butcher Goods.
Since the conversion to the online store, Mr Hine said he has seen a very positive change in the business.
"COVID gave us the opportunity to streamline and refine our business model which resulted in lower overheads, zero waste and better profitability," he said.
"Since closing the storefront I have missed being able to present my produce in the cabinets.
"I really do miss not being able to interact with customers and explain to them where our meat comes from."
Knowing where your meat comes from can be something that is really hard to trace, but in this case, The Naked Butcher has you covered.
The company has developed strong relationships with their growers over the years and fine-tuned the selection process so that the meat is as ethical as it can be and that animal welfare is the growers biggest concern too.
When time permits, the team from The Naked Butcher will do onfarm visits to support its growers and see the environment where the stock is raised.
"The whole idea of going down the ethical path was animal welfare," he said.
"The livestock are not just a commodity but a food source that should be treated respectfully."
Mr Hine said there was a positive onflow from the onfarm visits.
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"We get to see that the cattle are happy and raised in a healthy environment because we've visited and seen it ourselves," he said.
Mr Hine sources the majority of his beef from organically-certified grower, Bindoon Organic Beef, which he has a very good relationship with.
Dave Humphries, from Bindoon Organic Beef uses an English breed of cattle called Devon.
"I understand the intricacies of farming and I know it's not an exact science and that there can be variables," Mr Hine said.
"But the beef that I get from Bindoon Organic Beef is always very consistent.
"These cattle have unlimited access to lush green grass, always.
"I love using the Devon breed because they are a great size, we don't get massive sides and quarters."
Mr Hine said this breed of cattle was great because it was not too large for them to become difficult to handle in the butcher shop.
When the meat arrives at the shop it is generally aged in the fridge for 10-14 days before it is broken up and vacuum packed where it will go back into the fridge for another 10-14 days.
"We dry age the carcases in the fridge in carcase form for 10-14 days, then the quarters are broken up and trimmed into primals," Mr Hine said.
"We then vacuum pack the primals and wet age them for a further 10-14 days to ensure maximum tenderness and depth of flavour.
"From there, the individual primals are sliced, vacuum packed, labelled and frozen on site.
"If we put it in the fridge first it gives the meat a chance to become tender, if we were to chill it straight away in the freezer it would cause the meat to contract and tense up."
With an eye for quality beef, Mr Hine said the breed of cattle sourced and its environment was extremely important.
"The backgrounding of my apprenticeship exposed me to the various breeds of beef cattle and the intricacies that go along with each different breed," he said.
"European breeds that have a more placid temperament seem to perform better because they don't react to stress like the drought resistant breeds do."
The Naked Butcher is aiming to produce clean, consistent meat that is a good value for money for their customers.
"We are fortunate that a lot of people have educated themselves and they are willing to go the extra mile for good quality beef," Mr Hine said.
The business is seeing more of its client base driven by these qualities and people who are in tune with animal welfare.
"This means a lot to us," he said.
"They want clean products and we try to meet the health requirements of our clients too."
Mr Hine and his team try their best to produce meat to accommodate individual clients needs and diets such as histamine issues, paleo diets and the lion diet.
"For instance if we are accommodating for someone with a histamine issue we won't dry age anything we will cut it up as soon as we receive it," he said.
"The longer we leave the meat the more the histamine levels will go up."
Not only does The Naked Butcher provide quality beef they also source ethically grown pork, lamb, chicken, kangaroo, game meats and at one point alpaca.
"At the moment, beef constitutes about 60 per cent of our weekly sales, chicken is the next most popular, taking up roughly 18pc and then lamb falls in after them," he said.
Customers have the opportunity to obtain a customer loyalty card and give them a 5pc discount on the majority of the meats available online.
Mr Hine said all-in-all, his personal favourite beef cut would be a sirloin.
"I love them all but if I had to choose this would be it," he said.
"It's a very undervalued cut from a customer viewpoint, but if you want it lean you can cut the fat off, you get the best of both worlds."
The business has also helped support local schools, charity groups, sporting clubs and events and other community activities they deem worthy of a helping hand, over the years.
"We make a conscious effort to donate our hams at Christmas time to various charities who supply them to people who are doing it tough at that time of year," he said.
A few years ago the Ellenbrook area was devastated by life-threatening fires that tore through neighbouring towns.
"We donated the delivery fees from our weekly run to the Lord Mayor's disaster relief appeal victims to assist those affected by the fires," he said.
"We also donated $100 vouchers to those most impacted by the Parkerville fires too.
"A total of 59 vouchers were handed out."
Mr Hine's most recent act of kindness was toward the Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre at Lesmurdie.
"I approached Kanyana and offered them a $250 meat pack for them to use as a raffle prize as a fundraising venture," he said.
"The raffle resulted in a $2250 raise and the meat pack was won by one of the Kanyana volunteers, which was a great result."
