Turnbull's Northumbrian Food - serving Alnwick for 145 years - video Dailymotion

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Turnbull's Northumbrian Foodhall in Alnwick has been at its retail park location since 2019.  As a traditional family butchers, Turnbull's has been operating for 145 years as of 2025, staying traditional while moving with the times.

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00:00It's like a little mini Harrods for me. Well the meat, I mean the meat is fabulous. The lamb,

00:05the liver at the minute is fantastic. Everything never disappointed. As a small independent

00:11retailer we are quite unusual to be found on a retail park. I'm Mark Turnbull, fifth generation

00:16family butcher here at Turnbulls. Turnbulls Northumblian Fruit Hall in Annick, Northumberland.

00:21And then my son Dan and his sister Lucy are now both in the business. Yeah this year we're 145

00:27years old. I think because we are traditional family butchers, we are quite proud of our

00:33heritage as butchers and we take a lot of pride in the meat, whether that's a steak or a sausage

00:40or some home cured bacon, something we've processed. Kitchen ready products where we've taken the meat

00:46and turned it into a kitchen ready meal or whether it's one of our pies or pastry ranges. We're

00:52particularly proud of everything we do. You always, wherever possible, sourcing local Northumberland

00:57ingredients. Staff are amazing. First class. Very helpful, very polite always. I've worked

01:05here for 12 years. 12 years in September. Busy, fantastic. I just absolutely love working here.

01:11The business was established in 1880 by Roger Turnbull in Clayport Street Annick. We've done

01:17a bit of research on that and we know that's where it started. Sometime in the 1950s we moved

01:22to our Market Street location. We occupied a single shop in Market Street until the mid-1970s

01:29when my dad and his two brothers purchased the shop next door which was Pits the Draper's.

01:34They knocked the two shops into one. The butchery business remained on one side of the shop and

01:40the other side became a greengrocers and sandwich bar. Which at the time was quite a sort of forward

01:45think and venture. The shop remained in Market Street and in 2019 we had the opportunity to

01:53open on a new retail park on the outskirts of Annick. That's where our Northumberland Food

01:57Hall is. Yeah, we've got some fantastic customers to get you on. So come in every day, one's coming

02:03once a week and they're just great. Some new ones from being at the Food Hall and obviously what old ones

02:09from the town centre as well. A lot of the customers know Mark and Dan and they're so supportive in

02:14in following them and they are they're really pleased for for how this has took off. So they're

02:20just carrying on giving us their custom. It's all about establishing a relationship. That's what we

02:26built our success on and that's what we continue to thrive on now. Oh my goodness about 40 years,

02:3240-50 years. The shop continued trading as well in Market Street until 2022 when we took the decision

02:41to close it. The Food Hall just kept getting busier. It was becoming more successful and we just really

02:48wanted to focus all our efforts on the Food Hall on the new retail park. There's an inevitability that

02:55retail parks were going to take over from high streets. I think the high streets need to find a way to

02:59reinvent themselves. I think there's still a place in our society or economy however you want to put it

03:08for the high street but I think it's changing and it needs to find ways to modernize itself as well.

03:13It's definitely moving with the times. It's like whilst we've got you know we've got this fantastic

03:18heritage I think it's important to future proof as well. It's probably one of the best moves we could

03:24have ever made. It's all really brought us into the modern day retailing era. We just won an award for

03:31the best large butchery business in the north of England, something we're very proud of.

Turnbull's Northumbrian Food - serving Alnwick for 145 years

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