The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Food & crafts => Food processing => Topic started by: Maysie on November 01, 2018, 05:24:28 pm

Title: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: Maysie on November 01, 2018, 05:24:28 pm
We recently had 2 of our pigs slaughtered and butchered at a local abattoir.  All fine and generally pretty happy, but they did not have time to package the meat in the way that I wanted due to their current workload (mid October), so I ended up with the usual massive bags of unlabeled meat which I had to sort out in the kitchen at home.  I had been told that we would discuss packing options when I had dropped my pigs off, but was not told that I would just get whatever they wanted to do.  Had I been told, I would have made arrangements to have the carcasses processed elsewhere.  Unfortunately they were not willing to discuss options beforehand at all. 

What I really wanted was one pig processed as a basic 'kill and cut' so that I could see what that produced and the other pig fully vac-packaged so that I could give it away as 'gifts' to say thank you to the people who have helped us out locally over the past year.  What I now have though is a load of tie-handle freezer bags which just looks utterly rubbish. 

Has anyone else experienced this? 
If so, what do you now do about it? 

How hard is it to have the carcasses transported and processed by another (less busy/more helpful) butcher and packaged ready for sale? 

I assume the basic set up costs and legislation associated with butchering the meat myself would involve cold rooms, stainless tables, vacuum packing machines etc and that is before we even consider the required butchery skills that I would have to learn! 

I need to do something, as I cannot be handed another two pigs worth of meat which I have to eat wholly myself due to poor packaging and an unwillingness to package in any other way.  Our plan is that we will be scaling up very soon to sell pork boxes, so I need to present the meat in a way that is acceptable in a retail format - and this was our trial run, which has not gone well at all.....
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: DavidandCollette on November 01, 2018, 05:53:51 pm
I did a one day course on butchering a pig, by the time it came to actually do it I had forgotten half of it. It is time consuming and hard work to do it yourself.
My suggestion would be that you like up a butcher who can give you what you need in terms of cutting and presentation, and just let the abattoir do the killing etc. We are very lucky in that our abattoir cuts it up exactly how we want it
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: Anke on November 02, 2018, 06:23:32 am

It can be quite expensive to transport a carcass from the abattoir to a butcher, ask the butcher beforehand about costs for that. It is usually based on weight for some bizarre reason (or at least it was for us). We had to give up doing pigs due to nearest abattoir and butcher being a 150 mile round trip, and when we used a local butcher for cutting it cost so much for the transport back that we decided it wasn't worth our while).


And yes to do it at home and sell (legally) is quite difficult to set up and the bods that are your local EHO's usually don't like it... but I would have thought local barter culture is alive and kicking...
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: Backinwellies on November 02, 2018, 07:33:42 am
  Surely if you book vac pack when booking the pigs in there is no issue?
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: SallyintNorth on November 02, 2018, 08:43:01 am
I can share my experiences of Devon, Cumbria and now Cornwall.

Abattoirs rarely do the best butchering. Rough and ready, more like, and usually very little flexibility.

What seems to work best is to find a good butcher, one whose meat you’d buy if you didn’t rear your own.  They will be fetching the meat they butcher for themselves from a local abattoir, and it’s likely to be a good abattoir if it’s a good butcher.  In my experience, they don’t charge an arm and a leg to collect your carcasses from the abattoir when they fetch their own.  In fact, my butcher in Cumbria charged me less for kill and collect than I would have paid the abattoir for kill myself, because of course he has a good deal with them.

So we usually organise through the butcher; sometimes they will book the animals in at the abattoir too.  Then we take the animals to the abattoir, the butcher collects and butchers, and we then pick up from the butcher.

Our butcher here has been manic most of the summer.  It’s a tourist area, so lots more meat required for restaurants, hotels and such through the summer, plus we had drought for months and we were all sending any animals in we could get away, to reduce the load on the non-growing grass.  Then it’s busy again in the run-up to Christmas, of course.  They can manage more special requests and so on when it’s a bit quieter ;).
   
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: harmony on November 02, 2018, 09:33:29 am

That is disappointing for you.


On our courses we start by saying you need to work backwards with pigs - what you will do with the finished product, who will butch it, where it will be slaughtered and how will you get it there. Otherwise you could find yourself really stressed at the end and disappointed.


You could improve what you have got by adding some thank you labels.


If you want to sell meat you have to have a whole raft of stuff in place or have customers collect straight from the abattoir or butcher.


Not all butchers are licenced to cut up other peoples meat.


Not the best experience this time but you at least know what you wont do next time and can improve it.



Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: Maysie on November 02, 2018, 11:50:22 am
Thank you for the replies.

The abattoir I used is also on site of their linked (and very good) butchery, with a couple of other butchery stores in the area also.  I would buy from them, which is why I am more disappointed about the lack of willingness to do what was asked. 

Sounds like I may need to have a chat with another local butcher which I use and see if they can help out. 
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: Maysie on November 02, 2018, 11:54:52 am
  Surely if you book vac pack when booking the pigs in there is no issue?
You would have thought so wouldnt you!  But they would not even discuss the options with me when booking the pigs in, they insisted that we discussed it when the pigs were dropped off - hence the problems being discovered too late in the day. 

To be clear, I am very pleased with the abattoir process and the staff were very helpful.  I am also very pleased with the butchery I received.  It was purely the packaging/presentation that was not acceptable combined with the general unwillingness to do anything other than throw the meat into large plastic bags.   
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: SallyintNorth on November 02, 2018, 12:44:25 pm
It might be worth asking them if there would be a quieter time of year, when they might be more able to give you a more tailored service?
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: cambee on November 02, 2018, 01:56:00 pm
I’ve actually posted a similar point on the sheep section regarding the first lamb that we took in. It was for ourselves but also came back just in plastic bags in 2 big plastic sacks.  I said at the time that I felt that I couldn’t present lamb that way to anyone buying off us. So we now have another lamb in (again for us) which I’m collecting today but next week 3 going in that I’ve sold as half lamb ‘boxes’. I spoke to the abattoir about that and they’ve said that they can put it into boxes and labelled for an extra £5 fee per lamb. When we pick up the lamb this afternoon I’m going to repeat that request and get it confirmed so I’ll keep you posted how it goes. What I have decided is that doing meat boxes is a lot of hassle and that it’s probably easier just to take your lambs to market. That’ll be for next year though and another learning process!
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: landroverroy on November 02, 2018, 08:02:13 pm

It can be quite expensive to transport a carcass from the abattoir to a butcher, ask the butcher beforehand about costs for that. It is usually based on weight for some bizarre reason (or at least it was for us). We had to give up doing pigs due to nearest abattoir and butcher being a 150 mile round trip, and when we used a local butcher for cutting it cost so much for the transport back that we decided it wasn't worth our while).

...


It doesn't have to cost anything (but fuel) to transport a carcass from abattoir to butcher. You can do it yourself in your own transport. Or as suggested choose an abattoir used by the butcher you are using to cut up the meat, and you can get it picked up for little or no money by the butcher when he collects his own carcasses.
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: Anke on November 02, 2018, 08:19:11 pm

It can be quite expensive to transport a carcass from the abattoir to a butcher, ask the butcher beforehand about costs for that. It is usually based on weight for some bizarre reason (or at least it was for us). We had to give up doing pigs due to nearest abattoir and butcher being a 150 mile round trip, and when we used a local butcher for cutting it cost so much for the transport back that we decided it wasn't worth our while).

...


It doesn't have to cost anything (but fuel) to transport a carcass from abattoir to butcher. You can do it yourself in your own transport. Or as suggested choose an abattoir used by the butcher you are using to cut up the meat, and you can get it picked up for little or no money by the butcher when he collects his own carcasses.



Butchers here don't pick up individually from the abattoir, there is no "local" abattoir anymore in the Borders. We have picked up sheep or goats before direct from the abattoir and done our own butchery (we don't sell anymore), but for pigs a) carcasses are just too big to handle them by ourselves and b) just too much meat to eat it all ourselves (as we would do minimum two together). Local butcher would not allow me to collect carcasses and deliver to him, as not refrigerated.
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: sabrina on November 03, 2018, 01:27:47 pm
As Dingwall are no longer able to do butchering I have started using the local butcher to do our pigs and lambs. So far he has be very good. Dingwall deliver to his shop anyway so no problem there. We once did our pigs ourselves. A lot of hard work.
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: Black Sheep on November 03, 2018, 04:05:23 pm
On our courses we start by saying you need to work backwards with pigs - what you will do with the finished product, who will butch it, where it will be slaughtered and how will you get it there.

This is really good advice! Our first pigs were ready earlier than we thought they would be an it was all a bit rushed at the end.

You could improve what you have got by adding some thank you labels.

Agree. We label our own meat - just stick them on the bags that the cuts come back in from the butcher / abattoir. There are specific label requirements to be met but there is good information online from Food/Trading Standards to tell you what they need to have on them. Then it was just a matter of using a template file to print them on to sheets of freezer labels that we bought online.

https://www.labelplanet.co.uk/adhesive-a4-labels/freezer-labels.php (https://www.labelplanet.co.uk/adhesive-a4-labels/freezer-labels.php)

Makes a plain bag look more professional without needing to have it vac packed, which wasn't an option for us.

If you want to sell meat you have to have a whole raft of stuff in place or have customers collect straight from the abattoir or butcher.

You do, but it really isn't difficult. You have to register with Environmental Health as a food business, and with Trading Standards. To be honest the way the rules are written you probably have to do this even if you aren't physically getting the meat back, but are selling it for collection from the butcher/abattoir.

You have to have a food safety management plan, but after some reading online this was not difficult to write. Happy to share ours if useful but it is too big to attach. Record keeping, if you are just receiving back packaged meat and then delivering it to someone, is also minimal.
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: farmers wife on November 05, 2018, 11:55:04 pm
Most abattoirs have deliveries to butchers you just book and confirm who to deliver to. Many butchers do home kill animals.  Again variations to the quality of the cutting 'rustic' is what I call some and if selling its not a great start.  Some vac pack other bag.  Some do nice labelling while others just do basic labels which in my opinion cheapens the quality.  Its one thing that ruins the whole production is the butchery. Ive had some terrible cutting, speedy and quick.
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: Rupert the bear on November 14, 2018, 06:29:33 pm
Last year we sent 2 pig to slaughter, but prior to that we made enquired with local butchers about cutting and selected one who was well regarded and very keen to cut rare breed pork.
( somewhere on this thread are pictures of the results )
Title: Re: Butchery Options following Abattoir Process
Post by: Maysie on November 15, 2018, 09:34:43 am
Last year we sent 2 pig to slaughter, but prior to that we made enquired with local butchers about cutting and selected one who was well regarded and very keen to cut rare breed pork.
( somewhere on this thread are pictures of the results )
For ease of future reference, pics menioned above in RtB's post are here:
https://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=87832.msg673046#msg673046 (https://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=87832.msg673046#msg673046)