I’d like to share about what’s known in the farming world as “the butcher schedule.” But before I go there, I must share a little background first.
If you don’t already know this, there aren’t enough butcher facilities in the US anymore. They are so few and far between that some farmers must now drive up to 300 miles to transport their animals to slaughter.
How has this happened? Because, at least in large part, the big factory farms have consolidated their power and vertically integrated processing into their operations.
This has effectively stomped out the competition and, in some cases, completely obliterated butchering options that cater to small and midsize farms, thus impeding folks like you and me from building a secure, local food system.
Bearing all this in mind, when we started the farm, we were tasked with setting up our butcher schedule.
Certainly, a schedule with just a few dates per year (and more pigs heading out all at once) is more appealing in some ways – less frequent loading of animals, driving time, and wear and tear on the truck.
But there’s some serious downside with this strategy, mainly that bringing all that meat back to the farm all at once is a logistical nightmare!
Picture us trying to inventory and organize 100s of boxes of meat into chest freezers – infamous for their ability to become bottomless pits of chaos – so that a specific cut could be pulled at a moment’s notice for you at the Farm Store.
We wanted to avoid this mess. And because we have the luxury of being located just 60 miles away from an amazing female-run butcher facility, we opted for a more frequent butcher schedule.
Our bi-weekly schedule is not the norm for farms like ours, and it certainly requires more coordination, time, and effort on our end. But, it’s allowed us to keep the inventory manageable and fine-tuned to our community’s buying habits.
And it comes with another added benefit for YOU, which is that you get the freshest meat imaginable straight back from the butcher.
This was certainly a roundabout way of getting here. But here’s what I wanted to share with you tonight. With all the demand for our Half Pigs this fall, we have just 5 more butcher dates for the Farm Store!
This means there are just a handful of opportunities remaining to stock up with fresh pork before our farm goes into hibernation mode this winter, and the next one is happening this weekend!
We hope you’ll stock up and enjoy.
Your Farmers,
Jenney & Greg
PS – Cuts have been selling out quickly at the Farm Store, , now’s the time to pick it up at the Farm Store as our supplies will get tighter and tighter as the fall goes on.
PPS – For a list of our remaining Fresh Pork Dates, click here.