Woolworths no longer has a single butcher working in any of its South Island supermarkets, after completing a move to centrally prepared meat.

The supermarket giant confirmed to chrislynchmedia.com the last in-store butchery teams had finished, saying it had struggled for years to find butchers in the South Island.

“In the past few years, recruiting butchers in the South Island has been an ongoing challenge. To address this, we decided to migrate our meat offering to a centralised model,” a Woolworths NZ spokesperson said.

“We have been centralising our South Island meat offering for some time and as of today we no longer have butchers in our South Island stores.”

Meat sold in its South Island stores will now be cut and packed off site before reaching the shelves.

“Our in-store butchery teams have served our customers with incredible skill and dedication for many years and we thank them for their contribution,” the spokesperson said.

The company said it remained committed to supporting South Island farmers and delivering value and quality for customers.

Woolworths first began moving South Island stores away from in-store butchery in April, describing it at the time as a trial.

Workers First Union’s Rudd Hughes said then that butchers were already leaving because they could “see the writing on the wall”, and that many staff regarded the trial as “a fait accompli”.

The union has since estimated the South Island butchery changes cost about 40 jobs. The move follows a string of changes at the supermarket chain.

In April last year, Woolworths confirmed a nationwide restructure that disestablished department manager roles, including butchery and bakery managers, as it moved to a new store operating model.

In September this year, it began consulting on a proposal to move about 130 customer care jobs to Australia, shortly after reporting earnings before interest and tax of $163 million for the year to June, up 8.8 percent.