2023-08-25 17:15:00
“L’ sign on the door, does that mean you’re closing permanently?”, is surprised a customer, this Friday. Many are stunned by the announcement, but it is true: the Euroviande butcher’s shop, a real institution in Virton, will disappear on Saturday evening.
Banks don’t follow
This closure, Adolfo De Matos is not happy regarding it: “It’s been two years since I put the butcher shop up for salesays the manager. I was looking for buyers, there weren’t many, but people were very interested. The problem is that at the banking level, it stuck every time. So, I was waiting, I was waiting, but at 72, it’s time to think regarding myself, as my children tell me.”
It was therefore with a somewhat heavy heart that the butcher decided to cease his activity. “It’s unfortunate because I work a lot with local products, products without phosphate, without nitrite, without additives, without anything. I racked my brains for years to achieve this result, and I hoped to be able to transmit my recipes to someone. That’s how it is. It’s kind of my baby, so it’s a bit of a shame.”
A situation that the boss has trouble understanding, since the business is still going extremely well. Every month, several tons of meat pass through the chef’s workshop, with loyal customers, such as schools or restaurants. But the banks do not want it: “When I started, money was expensive, but you might find it. Today, it’s the opposite: banks no longer want to follow entrepreneurs”he regrets.
Back home
From now on, Adolfo De Matos will divide his time between his family home in Portugal, his native country, and Belgium, to stay close to his twelve grandchildren.
The calm of retirement therefore awaits the boss. A well-deserved rest: he has been a butcher since the age of 14. “In Portugal, when families weren’t rich, you had to go to town to learn a trade. So I’ve always been a butcher.”
Then exiled to France to escape the Portuguese military service which then lasted four years, he met his wife, Béatrice, in 1973 in Belgium. He worked at Spar de Virton before starting, first in Saint-Mard in 1978, then in Virton, in the former premises of Socolait, in 1981.
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