The knives are out! Huge change coming to Coles supermarkets around Australia - and it will alter how you buy meat forever Coles supermarkets considering moving to pre-packaged meat in stores Proposed change leaves 1,524 meat department employees fearing for their job Coles butchers face the chop as pre-cut meat is delivered to store retail ready Wooolworths made a similar move in 2018 to stop processing in-store By Tom Sargeant For Daily Mail Australia Published: 15:00 BST, 8 July 2021 | Updated: 15:00 BST, 8 July 2021 Viewcomments Coles is sharpening its knives to cut in-house butchers under a proposed move to pre-packaged meat. The Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union said 1,524 staff in the supermarket giant's meat department will be impacted with many fearing for their job. Wooolworths made a similar move in 2018 to stop processing beef, chicken and pork in-store in favour of pre-cut and pre-packaged meat. The union said Coles workers would be offered jobs at a lower rate of pay, or offered redundancies. Coles is considering a move to pre-packaged meat which would result in in-house butchers getting the chop from stores around the country Coles said the restructure of its meat department was to meet the demands of customers. 'We are considering a proposal to align our meat operating models nationally in our stores, so that we can consistently deliver high quality retail-ready meat for our customers whenever they want to shop,' a spokesperson said. 'Under the proposal, our fresh meat range would be supplied to stores as retail-ready products and would not require any preparation to be carried out in-store before being placed on the shelves of our meat fridges for customers to buy.' The Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union Victorian secretary Paul Conway said the move has been a slow progression as supermarkets across the country have moved away from traditional butchery services. 'Woolworths had made a decision some time ago to go retail ready and Coles are now following suit,' Mr Conway said. Coles said butchers impacted by the potential restructure would re-trained and re-deployed elsewhere in the company. Coles said retail-ready meat would not require any preparation to be carried out in-store Read more: Share or comment on this article: All rights reserved for this news site (dailymail) and under his responsibility