Kaponga’s last butcher is hanging up his knives                                                                                     

Kaponga’s last butcher is hanging up his knives and striped apron after a lifetime in a business that’s been open almost as long as the South Taranaki town has existed.

Ben Flintoff, 77, and his brother, Terry, 79, grew up helping their father and followed him into the meat business.

It’s a trade that runs in their family, with their great-grandfather, grandfather and two uncles all working as butchers or at slaughterhouses.

“I think my son wanted to as well, but I told him to be a builder, it’s more beneficial,” Ben says. “He’s in Australia working on high-rise builds.”

It all started in 1945, the year Ben was born, when their own father, also called Ben, bought an existing butchery business on the town’s main street.  Filmed Feb 2023

1:17                                                                                                                         23/8/23