Meat from own cattle
In early 2021, Niels Claessens and Leslie Kingambo opened the artisanal butcher’s shop Boeuf in Mechelen-Bovelingen. The couple works with meat from their own cattle and used a Start Loan to buy those animals. At the end of last year, they received the Handmade in Belgium label from Unizo.
The Handmade in Belgium label (HIB label) is an annually renewable ambassador label through which UNIZO aims to highlight the makers of authentic and artisanal Belgian quality products. The Boeuf team’s products fit perfectly into that philosophy: the butcher’s shop works with Duroc pork and home-grown Limousin beef. Near the butcher’s shop, Limousin cattle graze, which the butcher breeds himself. “The meat has a beautiful red colour with special marbling, it is deliciously juicy and incredibly tender. A real taste sensation,” the butcher knows. Together with his wife, he decided to take over a shop that had been closed for some time, giving Mechelen-Bovelingen another artisanal butchery since 5 February. The couple are from Sint-Truiden, but live nearby and have cows. Niels was chief butcher in Tienen but had long dreamed of running his own butcher’s shop. Leslie worked in an accounting office and has been in the shop full-time since last year.
