Butcher

Butcher
	A butcher in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2015
Occupation
Occupation type	Vocation
Activity sectors	Manufacturing
Description
Fields of; employment	Retail
Related jobs	Animal husbandry

A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks.[1] They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments. A butcher may be employed by supermarkets, grocery stores, butcher shops and fish markets, slaughter houses, or may be self-employed.[2]

A butcher performing his trade in a traditional manner from A butcher's, Tacuinum sanitatis casanatensis (14th century)

Butchery is an ancient trade, whose duties may date back to the domestication of livestock; its practitioners formed guilds in England as far back as 1272.[3] Today, many jurisdictions offer trade certifications for butchers. Trade qualification is earned through a three to four year apprenticeship although some training organisations qualify their students sooner, depending on their competency. In some countries, once a butcher is trade qualified, they can learn to become a master butcher (Fleishmaster) .[4][5]

Duties

A butcher cutting meat at a traditional butcher shop

Primary butchery in a meat packing plant, 1873

A butcher from the late 19th century

Butchery is a traditional line of work. In the industrialized world, slaughterhouses use butchers to slaughter the animals, performing one or a few of the steps repeatedly as specialists on a semi automated disassembly line. The steps include stunning (rendering the animal incapacitated), exsanguination (severing the carotid or brachial arteries to facilitate blood removal), skinning (removing the hide or pelt) or scalding and dehairing (pork), evisceration (removing the viscera) and splitting (dividing the carcass in half longitudinally).

After the carcasses are chilled (unless "hot-boned"), primary butchery consists of selecting carcasses, sides, or quarters from which primal cuts can be produced with the minimum of wastage; separating the primal cuts from the carcass; trimming primal cuts and preparing them for secondary butchery or sale; and storing cut meats. Secondary butchery involves boning, trimming and value-adding of primal cuts, in preparation for sale. Historically, primary and secondary butchery were performed in the same establishment, but the advent of methods of preservation (vacuum packing) and low cost transportation has largely separated them.

In parts of the world, it is common for butchers to perform many or all of the butcher's duties. Where refrigeration is less common, these skills are required to sell the meat of slaughtered animals.

Butcher shop

Boucherie du Bac, 82 Rue du Bac, Paris.

A butcher at work in Syria

Butchers sell their goods in specialized stores, commonly termed a butcher shop (American English), butchery (South African English) or butcher's shop (British English). Butchers at a butcher shop may perform primary butchery, but will typically perform secondary butchery to prepare fresh cuts of meat for sale. These shops may also sell related products, such as hot food (using their own meat products), food preparation supplies, baked goods and grocery items. Butcher shops can have a wider variety of animal types, meat cuts and quality of cuts. Additionally, butcher shops may focus on a particular culture, or nationality, of meat production. Some butcher shops, termed "meat delis", may also include a delicatessen.

In the United States and Canada, butcher shops have become less common because of the increasing popularity of supermarkets and warehouse clubs. Many remaining ones are aimed at Hispanic and other immigrants or, more recently, those looking for organic offerings.[6] Supermarkets employ butchers for secondary butchery, but in the United States even that role is diminished with the advent of "case-ready" meat, where the product is packaged for retail sale at the packinghouse or specialized central processing plants.

Primal cut

A primal cut is a piece of meat initially separated from the carcass during butchering. Different countries and cultures make these cuts in different ways, and primal cuts also differ between type of carcass. The British, American and French primal cuts all differ in some respects. A notable example is fatback, which in Europe is an important primal cut of pork, but in North America is regarded as trimmings to be used in sausage or rendered into lard. The primal cuts may be sold complete or cut further.

(The quite distinct term "prime cut" is sometimes used to describe cuts considered to be of better quality; for example the USDA uses a beef grading system ranging from "prime" to "canner".) Three examples of "prime cuts" are sirloin (porterhouse), eye fillet (tenderloin), rib fillet (cube roll).

Metaphorical use

See also Butcher (disambiguation)

In various periods and cultures, the term "butcher" has been applied to people who act cruelly to other human beings or slaughter them. For example, Pompey, a prominent Roman general and politician of the first century BC, got the Latin nickname adulescentulus carnifex, translated as "The Teenage Butcher" or "The Butcher Boy", due to brutal treatment of political opponents in the early part of his career.

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References

"Merriam-Webster's Dictionary's definition of "butcher"".
"Employment information for butchers". Archived from the original on 2010-04-05. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
"York Butchers' Guild". Yorkbutchersgild.com. Archived from the original on 2012-03-08. Retrieved 2012-04-04.
"Job futures statistics". Servicecanada.gc.ca. Archived from the original on 2009-08-07.
"Master Butcher's Guide". Members.shaw.ca. Archived from the original on 2006-09-23.
"Small butcher shops are in 'a renaissance.' How did they survive the supermarket offensive?".

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