A Mold farmer, slaughterman and butcher is doing his best to keep traditional skills alive.

Reporter Steve Craddock popped into his shop in the Daniel Owen precinct to see why it is so important...

The traditional art of butchery is dying out.

So says farmer, slaughterman and master butcher Carl Grech from Llandegla who first came into the trade at just nine years of age whilst working with his father.

I spoke to 61-year-old Mr Grech just over a week after he opened his new shop in the Daniel Owen Precinct - named CJ's Butchers.

He said: "My dad started doing the job when he was my age with my grandad - I have carried it on.

"The way I have been brought up with the job is with livestock at home and then taking them to the abattoir, then from there we return them to our shop premises.

"We completely cut up from start to finish the whole carcass, then we would bone it out and seam it and prepare it for the customer, however they require it.

"We would even give them advice and guidance on how to cook every cut from all species form tail to nose."

But this traditional approach is being overshadowed by the 'mass production' and sale seen in the retail industry, in particular supermarkets, Mr Grech said.

He explained traditional butchery is not as popular a skill as it once was, continuing: "Our skill is a dying thing and the reason is all the fast mass production - in abattoirs today they want speed.

"There's not many people now that you can give an animal to who can take it form the field to the plate for the customer.

"Our style is dying, there's only a few of us around in this area now that do it this way - we make everything here in the shop and to find this today is very hard.

"Today the only people I know of in the vicinity of us is Jones Brothers from Mold Road, Stansty - they are farmers, slaughtermen and master butchers.

"The supermarkets like it 'in today gone today or tomorrow' but our tradition is not of that nature.

"We like to hang our livestock so the customer gets the quality they pay for.

"The customer goes to the supermarket because of the price they put it out for.

"They buy in such a volume that they can do to whereas we can't do it as cheap as them but then we don't do it in their style and standard.

"It is all speed-boned and vacuum packed and it goes to a butcher in a supermarket, but he isn't a supermarket butcher - he is a process operator, out of a bag.

"We work on the whole carcass and that is the way we know.

"Years ago supermarkets did that but not anymore because they can't get the people to do it."

Trainee butcher Lucy Smart, 31, is studying astrophysics part time at the Open University as well as learning the trade from Mr Grech.

She said: "The supermarkets have has a big impact but you can't get the same quality of service that you can in a traditional butchers."

Mr Grech said he has been amazed at the response to his new shop and the demand it has seen, explaining that his customers love tradition.

He said: "We have been absolutely mind blown.

"People have come to know that were here by the word of mouth - everyone has been coming from all over to purchase our product.

"We have been selling 280 to 340 pounds of sausages a day and it is all natural with no additives.

"This is what we are all about, and this is how it should be."