The Mad Butcher stores have closed and will lose about $3 million in meat, after saying they were an essential service and could open during the coronavirus lockdown.

Mad Butcher outlets were open on Thursday despite the Government saying that butchers were not essential businesses.

The Government list of what are essential services has been updated since the lockdown was announced, and did not exclude butchers at first. Supermarkets and dairies can remain open.

Mad Butcher chief executive Michael Morton said on Friday that he was gutted, and had been trying hard to get answers from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) about its status.

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JACKSON THOMAS/STUFF There are 20 Mad Butcher stores throughout the country, of which 15 are franchises.

There are 20 Mad Butcher stores throughout the country, of which 15 are franchises.

"We can't get clarification from MBIE, which we've been trying to do for two days, that's mainly why, and we don't want to risk getting fined or anything from that point of view," Morton said.

"We've sent lawyers' letters, we finally spoke to someone at MBIE, they told us it was up to each individual business to decide whether they met the criteria.

"We're in no man's land - not only did we meet all the criteria ... in good faith we looked at the criteria, we perfectly fit that criteria."

​Butcheries were excluded from the list of essential businesses on Wednesday afternoon, along with bakeries and other similar small retailers.

"We said we don't consider ourselves to be a small retailer, we know from the volumes that we do we don't fit that criteria, and we sought clarification again on that."

Stores were given the option to open on Thursday.

Police had visited a couple of Mad Butcher stores on Thursday, asking what the situation was, and were shown letters the company's lawyers had written to MBIE asking for clarification, he said.

The company had bought about $3 million worth of meat to meet the heavy demand which could not be donated, or frozen, as staff could not re-enter the stores, he said.

"Based on the fact that we got told we were essential services, everybody was panic-buying up until that time and we panic-bought as well from our supplier. Our sales were up 60 per cent week-on-week, so we panic-bought as well because we had to keep serving all these customers.

"We bought all of this product and then they changed the regulations after we closed [on Wednesday], so we didn't even get an opportunity to try and sell that product."

Morton said he was "pretty emotional" about the situation.

"First and foremost we took it incredibly seriously, about our staff safety, customer safety, we had screen guards made that were all ready to be installed, we had stickers on the floor telling everyone to stay two metres apart, hand sanitiser, masks, gloves - we had everything all set to go."

Restaurants and cafes take about 20 to 25 per cent of meat sold in New Zealand, he said, while butchery shops take another 20 per cent.

"That means the two supermarket chains have to produce basically another 45 per cent more meat than what they currently sell to be able to meat the demand if everyone still eats the same amount of meat."

He questioned the number of supermarkets and other stores that were open such as dairies, some of which were close to each other.

"Countdown's Australian-owned, yes they employ a lot of New Zealanders but you've got New Zealand-owned small businesses that will go to the wall over this yet Australian companies are going to profiteer massively.

"I am incredibly frustrated because people saying we were just trying to profiteer and so forth, it was incredibly hard to talk to your staff ... you're asking people you employ to come to work, but the whole head office staff had been out in stores working all week as well.

"I feel gutted by it, and I understand there's been hundreds and hundreds of businesses that are going to be affected, but I feel that it was completely underhand in that they changed the rules after we had closed [on Wednesday]."

Supermarkets did not cater for the lower socio-economic customers, he said.

"Pork bones, hangi pork, lamb flaps, a lot of their staples that they need a lot of, supermarkets might have some but nowhere near the volume that these people eat - the demand is huge."

On Wednesday night, before the lockdown, the Mad Butcher Glenn Innes outlet was broken into and six people making three trips to steal meat, he said.