Peter Leitch

Who is Peter Leitch?

Sir Peter Charles Leitch KNZM QSM is a New Zealand businessman, also known as The Mad Butcher. Although well known in New Zealand for the chain of butcheries he founded, Leitch is arguably just as well known for his charity, fundraising work and his promotion of rugby league.

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, he left school at age 15 on account of dyslexia to work as a newspaper boy. He gained a job as a butcher's apprentice in a Seatoun butchery at the age of 16, before later moved to Auckland.

In 1971, he opened a butchery in Rosella Road, Mangere East. When a friend suggested a marketing gimmick for his radio advertising, Leitch recalled an incident at a pub in which someone referred to him as "that f**king mad butcher", hence his butchery became "the home of the Mad Butcher". In 2012, "The Mad Butcher" has become a butchery chain of 36 stores from Whangarei to Dunedin.

Leitch is known for his work for charity and for his enthusiastic support of New Zealand rugby league, the Mangere East Hawks and the Warriors, which has increased the sport's profile in New Zealand. He managed the Kiwi's victorious Tri-Nations campaign in late 2005.