Our story goes back over 60 years when Brendan Kerrigan fell in love with the art of butchery. He had an instant connection with the ancient trade as he learned his craft from just 13 years of age. He worked his way up the ranks in established butchers throughout the county and in 1973 set up his own store in the newly built Donaghmede Shopping, located in the North of Dublin.

Fast forward nearly 45 years and Kerrigans has established itself as an essential service for gym buffs and fitness fiends throughout Ireland. So how did it make this dramatic leap from a single butcher shop to an established business servicing health mad customers throughout the country? Enter Shane and Barry Kerrigan, sons of Brendan.

Shane came on board the now family business in 1985 as an apprentice, learning from his father’s years of experience. Barry then joined in 1993 to continue in the family tradition. The whole family got involved at some stage with sister Brenda working on the shop deli after school. She explains, “I’d be straight in on a Wednesday afternoon as we had a half day at school. I’d work on the cheese counter as well as making fresh salads. It certainly kept us out of trouble but we loved it!” Brenda still works with the family business at their head office in Baldoyle.

Over those years, the business went from strength to strength and in 2007 the brand went through a massive overhaul which propelled them into the modern age of butchery, becoming “Kerrigan's Craft Butchers”. They kept the fundamental traditions of a conventional butcher shop while introducing easy-to-cook, ready to eat meals and dozens of healthy options.

In 2015 the business took a massive leap. They began delivering orders nationwide to cater for the demand for healthy, high quality, protein bursting products.

Barry Kerrigan explains all: “Our Foods for Fitness range actually evolved by accident. In January 2011, after the birth of my 1st Daughter, my own fitness journey began as you need to be fit for kids these days. This sparked my curiosity in nutrition!

We opened our Malahide store in 2012. Our staff all had a keen interest in fitness and nutrition. This led to a lot on conversations around how we fuelled ourselves for training and we all agreed that the preparation of the food at home took too long. There’s only so much chicken and broccoli you can eat! We knew that burgers would be super easy to cook and we could load them up with our favourite seasonings, herbs & spices. In fact originally we only made them for ourselves, we didn’t think anyone would be interested in our chicken and turkey burgers! Overtime customers instore with similar interests in fitness who also expressed that their own meal prep was taking too long. We started handing out free samples to these people and we were blown away by the response. This sparked further ideas for products as had a good understanding of what flavours and spices worked well together. We launched our Foods For Fitness Range in May 2013 with a commitment that we would keep developing products to help people from getting bored of their diet.

Over time the word spread through both word-of-mouth and social media. We had people from all over Ireland driving to our stores in Dublin just to get our products! People kept asking for us to deliver but we were hesitant as we knew the difficulties around selling online can be from previous experience but we said in Nov 2015 we would give it a trial month. We sold to capacity for the month! We knew we had to look at our processes to make sure we can handle the amount of orders we were forecasting. We officially launched our site www.kerriganmeats.ie on 28th December 2015.Throughout 2016 we shipped 10000 boxes of handmade products to all 32 Counties of Ireland.

In 2018 we doubled our production from the previous year. We also had several enquiries from people living in the UK about deliveries. Again, we were hesitant about this but we won't know until we try so we have now starting delivering to all UK mainland addresses! It's going to be an exciting 2019.

We sell the same quality products in all our butcher shops offering unique value so that you, our customer, can benefit from the expertise of our craft butchers and the meats they prepare at prices which represent the best value in Dublin. We are a multi-award winning Craft Butcher and one of the first to receive the Certified Craft Butcher standard introduced by the Association of Craft Butchers of Ireland in 2012.

We attained the highest score in Dublin and continue to be the leading butcher shop in Dublin with 11 gold medals and 8 silver medals. Together with 40 years’ experience, this underpins our commitment to the finest quality meats. Our focus is on high quality products with everything being 100% traceable from local suppliers – from farm to fork. The craft we employ is the traditional method of developing flavour.

Our beef goes through an ageing process. Our beef is kept in a temperature controlled ageing chamber on our premises where, over 21 days, it matures, develops flavour and becomes more tender. In addition to traditional cuts, we offer a unique experience in our own easy-cook, ready-to-eat and heat-and-eat ranges of products to cater for the modern lifestyle.

Many of our products are low in fat and we have added a full range of gluten free products. We also stock complementary products to make your mealtimes a feast: sauces, pickles and condiments. It is well worth a trip to see for yourself how easily and economically you can shop for your family.