Saturday afternoon, and a queue of shoppers stands waiting in the new branch of The Ginger Pig butchers in Hackney, East London, scanning a magnificent display of meat, including four handsome ribs of beef on the counter.

The butcher, Borat Kozeli, advises an Italian couple on which cut they need for the dish bollito misto, while his assistant picks out pork and pumpkin sausages for two young sisters. The shop's butchery class, which is held three evenings a week, is booked up until March.

On the other side of the city, Andrew McCreadie guides a customer towards a cheap and tasty shoulder of lamb. He opened a shop in Pitshanger Lane in Ealing two months ago. Business is brisk and he has plenty of regulars already, from old ladies coming in for a chicken breast to parents feeding families.

When money is short, you might think that traditional butchers would be looking at lean times, but one of the surprises of the economic downturn is that the trend for eating good meat is more than holding up. Independent butchers have seen sales of cheaper cuts of beef, such as topside, go up by 23 per cent and lamb mince increase by 65 per cent in the past year, with offal sales rising by nearly 25 per cent, according to a recent Mintel report.

“I would say, if anything, we're benefiting from the downturn,” says Daniel Harrison, of J. Seal in Barnes, southwest London. “It seems to be keeping people inside, cooking, rather than eating out.”

“Our customer base is very solid,” says Peter Greig, who recently doubled the size of his shop, Pipers Farm, in Exeter. “People might have one less meat meal a week, or slightly tweak their pattern of what they buy, but the first thing they drop is where they aren't confident that they are getting value for money.”

The trend for buying good meat from butchers has grown steadily in the past few years. The number of independent butchers may have fallen from 21,000 in 1984, when supermarkets and stricter hygiene legislation arrived in the high street, to about 6,000 today, but those that survived have seen a revival over the past couple of years. “The best ones are left and their sales are increasing,” says Graham Bidston, the chief executive of the National Federation of Meat and Food Traders.

George Debman, the owner of a family butchery in Ipswich that has been operating since 1961, has seen a recent upturn in trade. “Celebrity chefs such as Jamie and Hugh have made people look at traceability and, all of a sudden, people are plucking up the courage to come in. We're finding people will do their main shop at a superstore and come here for their meat.”

In The Ginger Pig, Leo Wood, a shopper in his late twenties, is getting an off-the-cuff masterclass in steaks and roasts from Kozeli, who explains that sirloin steaks come from the wing rib joint, and that ribeye steak makes a delicious, juicy meal because of its marbling of fat.

Eric Moen, who is originally from New York, shops here for the quality and the atmosphere. “People want to move away from soulless consumerism,” he says.

How are butchers enticing consumers who are used to supermarket shopping back into local shops? “It's trying to put people at ease because they can feel a bit nervous not knowing what's what,” says Philip Cranston, who has six shops in Cumbria and Northumberland. “There's the story of the customer who always gets a pound of sausages and two chops, just because it's what she knows. You need a good display and service, and products that are ‘nearer the oven'.”

As a result, butchers are playing the supermarkets at their own game by finding ways to make meat more convenient and offering good value. Pipers Farm now sells takeaway ready meals, such as Thai chicken curry with rice, or hearty beef stew and dumplings, for £4.95.

Traditional butchers are not, on the whole, likely to be cheaper than supermarkets, although it depends what you buy. George Debden claims that, over the year, he can match their prices. But they do offer a different sort of service and quality of knowledge. A good butcher will hang the red meat until it is tender and tasty; most will buy in the whole animal from a farmer they know. Some, such as William Lloyd Williams, of Machynlleth in Powys even run their own abattoir. He displays the names and phone numbers of farms providing the animals in the shop window. “I see more younger women coming into our shop because they want to know the meat will be good, and that they are giving the money to a local farmer,” he says.

It remains to be seen how this trend holds up as we progress beyond festive eating to January belt-tightening. But so far, the move towards less-but-better meat is serving the decent family butcher well. More people are coming through the door, asking more questions... and then coming back.

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