At lunch time today I glanced into a butcher’s shop and noticed that there was sawdust all over the floor. I haven’t seen sawdust on the floor of a butchers since I was a child. As I had no idea why they did this I thought I would look into it. It appears that sawdust is used as a soaking agent and is wonderful for helping you to clean up things like vomit and blood. So, this was put onto the floor to make it easier to clean up the blood that would drip from the carcasses. It was also used by some butchers to make sure that they never sold meat to people that was dropped on the floor.

Everything I read suggested that putting sawdust on the floor was something that butchers did years ago, which makes sense as I don’t recall seeing any dripping carcasses whilst shopping lately. So why do butchers in Belfast still put sawdust on the floor?