A well-known premium meat company known as the “King’s butcher” has been saved, but the factory where it built its name is closing. For anyone following major food companies cutting jobs, this is the kind of story that shows how a brand can survive while a local workplace disappears.
Donald Russell, a premium butcher founded near Balmoral in Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1974, has closed its factory in Inverurie with 90 jobs lost in the latest round of redundancies. Combined with 30 earlier cuts made when the company struggled to find a buyer, the total job loss from the wind-down comes to 120. The company also closed its Kintore cold storage distribution centre in 2024, eliminating roughly 70 more jobs.
The brand itself is not gone.
Donald Russell has been acquired by DukesHill, an artisan butcher based in Shropshire, England. The new owner plans to continue the brand, but the takeover has ended Donald Russell’s operations in Inverurie, the community where the company was founded. About 79 staff from the direct-to-consumer division transferred to DukesHill, though those roles will now operate from Shropshire rather than Aberdeenshire.
That is what makes the closure bittersweet.
From a customer’s point of view, the name may live on. Premium steaks, roasts, burgers, sausages, and mail-order meat could still be sold under the Donald Russell brand. The company was famous for its “big four” steaks — fillet, sirloin, ribeye, and rump.
But for the workers and the town, the local operation is ending.
Donald Russell was no ordinary butcher. The company held a Royal Warrant from 1984, supplied the royal household from its base near Balmoral, and was known as the “King’s butcher.” Then-Prince Charles visited the Aberdeenshire site in 1995. The brand also supplied premium cuts to clients including the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the Loews Hotel in Monte Carlo, and the Orient Express. Its reputation was built around quality, provenance, and a premium image that made it stand out from supermarket meat counters.
Still, premium food brands are not immune to pressure.
Higher costs, weaker consumer spending, tight margins, and expensive operations have hit many specialty food companies. Beef prices have reached historic highs, and food companies have also been squeezed by surging energy and employment costs. When shoppers are watching budgets, premium meat can become a harder sell. And when a factory’s costs are too high, a buyer may choose to keep the brand but not the facility.
That is what appears to have happened here.
The closure is also a reminder that “rescued” does not always mean saved for everyone.
A rescue deal can preserve a brand, a website, customer lists, recipes, products, or intellectual property. But it can still mean job losses and the end of a longtime local employer. Conservative MP Harriet Cross, who represents Gordon and Buchan, described the closure as “a dark day” for the local economy and Scotland’s meat industry.
For Inverurie, the impact is immediate: 120 jobs gone in this wind-down alone, and the loss of a company with more than 50 years of local history.
For Donald Russell customers, the brand may continue under new ownership.
But the company’s original home is closing its doors.
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