Aubrey Allen was born on 8th August 1915 and was the youngest of 7 children. Born into humble beginnings, his mother was in domestic service in Surrey and his father was a private in the Army. Despite his family’s status, Aubrey’s Father had high ambitions for all of his 7 children and they were all given what he considered to be upper class names such as Aubrey, Thomas and Sidney. Sadly for Aubrey, and his siblings, both his mother and father died before boy reached fourteenth birthday.
It was decided that rather than go to an orphanage the young man should be apprenticed to a butchers in Coventry, where he would live and work for the rest of his adolesance. Unafraid of hard work and strong, Aubrey delivered meat around the city and learnt butchers trade. Every Sunday however he had to spend the day away from his accommodation, as the butcher lived there with his family and it was against the convention of the day for apprentices to mix with the family on the Sabbath. Aubrey would take the bike he used for deliveries and cycle into the surrounding countryside. These Sunday adventures would foster two lifelong passions in the young man; a love of the Warwickshire Countryside and a fascination with the provenance of all types of meat. Determined not to stay poor and with a clear vision of how he would achieve this, Aubrey worked hard and became the youngest man in Coventry’s history to obtain a slaughter license. He was barely eighteen and had taken his first step towards becoming a “Coventry Kid” a local term of affection for a successful businessman of humble origins
Aubrey opened his first butchery soon after he obtained his license, his care in the quality of the produce meant that he insisted that there was grassland close to the premises. This was important as it allowed the animals to be slaughtered close to where they would be processed, improving the quality of the cuts of meat Aubrey would sell to his customers. With his business and reputation growing (he had to leave the business when he was called up for duty in 1939 and returned to it again in 1945) he took a wife, Gladys. The marriage was a long and happy one, producing three children with Peter Allen following his father into the butchers’ trade, finally taking over all of Aubrey’s six butcheries.
Peter inherited his father's spirit for self improvement and determination. Not content living in his father’s shadow, at the age of sixteen Peter moved away from Coventry to work in different butchers shops around the UK and learn his trade. Then, and to a lesser extent today, different parts of Britain had different cuts and names for meat as well as differing ideas on the best way cook them. Peter served much of his apprenticeship in the North of England however during the course of his career Peter has been educated in the Butchery schools of Holland, Germany and France. Once again his similarity to Aubrey became apparent as he became the youngest ever person to manage a shop belonging to one of the big chain butchers of its day, Dewhurst.
Confident that he would a worthy successor to his father and with ambitions to build on Aubrey’s foundations, Peter took over the butchery business in the late 1970's. At that time the chain totaled six shops in and around Coventry, Peter Allen would turn those outlets into the internationally respected business Aubrey Allen Ltd is today.
As the 1970’s gave way to the 1980’s Peter’s business acumen came to the fore. Soon after he opened Aubrey Allen Ltd first butchery outside of Coventry in Leamington Spa, Peter came up with the loyalty card scheme the first butcher the country to do so. He also started to meet and listen to chefs whom, like Peter, had been educated abroad and wanted more from a butcher than the average English butcher was able to provide. Peter’s knowledge of international cutting techniques, creating more tender cuts from a single carcass, not only provided value for his growing chef clientele but also unrivaled quality which few other butchers nationally could match.
As Aubrey Allen Ltd reputation and clientele grew, Peter opened a butchery unit in Canley Coventry to service the increasing market quality cuts to chefs and the discerning meat lover. Most butchery apprentiships run for three years, Peter bucked this trend, creating a 5 year in-house apprenticeship so he could educate young butchers in the international cutting methods that he had learned. With this increased quality of the butchers Aubrey Allen Ltd were employing Peter and his business partner Alan Healy (a fellow meat expert) wanted apply the traditional butcher methods Aubrey with the modern techniques of the meat industry. They achieved this by paying farmers directly a premium for their produce and ensuring that Aubrey Allen Ltd butchers were delivered the whole carcass. This is still Aubrey Allen Ltd philosophy today: to buy the best British meat in the country, butchered by the best craftsmen and sold at the very best price.
Peter once again followed his father by have three children with his wife Jennifer. Like their father, all three children have worked outside of the business and have all now returned to work for Aubrey Allen Ltd, building a butchery business fit for the discerning 21st century consumer.