11-alimenti,carni ovine,Taccuino Sanitatis, Casanatense 4182

A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments. A butcher may be employed by

supermarkets A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more l ...

grocery stores A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, a ...

, butcher shops and

fish market A fish market is a marketplace for selling fish and fish products. It can be dedicated to wholesale trade between fishermen and fish merchants, or to the sale of seafood to individual consumers, or to both. Retail fish markets, a type of wet ma ...

slaughter house A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...

s, or may be

self-employed Self-employment is the state of working for oneself rather than an employer. Tax authorities will generally view a person as self-employed if the person chooses to be recognised as such or if the person is generating income for which a tax return n ...

. Butchery is an ancient trade, whose duties may date back to the

domestication Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which humans assume a significant degree of control over the reproduction and care of another group of organisms to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that group. ...

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to ani ...

; its practitioners formed

guilds A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

as far back as 1272. Since the 20th century, many countries and local jurisdictions offer trade certifications for butchers in order to ensure quality, safety, and health standards but not all butchers have formal certification or training. Trade qualification in English-speaking countries is often earned through an

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

although some training organisations also certify their students. In Canada, once a butcher is trade qualified, they can learn to become a master butcher (Fleishmaster). Standards and practices of butchery differ between countries, regions and ethnic groups. Variation with respect to the types of animals that are butchered as well as the cuts and parts of the animal that are sold depends on the types of foods that are prepared by the butcher's customers.

Duties

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 Exsanguination is death caused by loss of blood. Depending upon the health of the individual, people usually die from losing half to two-thirds of their blood; a loss of roughly one-third of the blood volume is considered very serious. Even a sin ...

(severing the

carotid In anatomy, the left and right common carotid arteries (carotids) (Entry "carotid"
in
brachial arteries to facilitate blood removal), skinning (removing the hide or pelt) or scalding and dehairing (pork), evisceration (removing the

viscera In biology, an organ is a collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the hierarchy of life, an organ lies between tissue and an organ system. Tissues are formed from same type cells to act together in a f ...

) 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 cut A primal cut or cut of meat is a piece of meat initially separated from the carcass of an animal during butchering. Examples of primals include the round, loin, rib, and chuck for beef or the ham, loin, Boston butt, and picnic for pork. Differen ...

s 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 Vacuum packing is a method of packaging that removes air from the package prior to sealing. This method involves placing items in a plastic film package, removing air from inside and sealing the package. Shrink film is sometimes used to have a tig ...

) 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

Butchers sell their goods in specialized stores, commonly termed a butcher shop (

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...

), butchery (

South African English South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding o ...

) or butcher's shop (

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadl ...

). 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

Charcuterie Charcuterie ( , also ; ; from french: chair, , flesh, label=none, and french: cuit, , cooked, label=none) is a French term for a branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products, such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, ''galantines'', ''ballo ...

, 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 Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

, or

nationality Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of t ...

, of meat production. Some butcher shops, termed "meat delis", may also include a

delicatessen Traditionally, a delicatessen or deli is a retail establishment that sells a selection of fine, exotic, or foreign prepared foods. Delicatessen originated in Germany (original: ) during the 18th century and spread to the United States in the m ...

. In the United States and Canada, butcher shops have become less common because of the increasing popularity of

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limit ...

s and warehouse clubs. Many remaining ones are aimed at Hispanic and other immigrants or, more recently, those looking for organic offerings. 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. One notable example with pork is

fatback Fatback (also known as streak of lean or streak of fat) is a cut of meat from a domestic pig. It consists of the layer of adipose tissue (subcutaneous fat) under the skin of the back, with or without the skin (pork rind). Fatback is "hard fa ...

, 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 Lard is a semi-solid white fat product obtained by rendering the fatty tissue of a pig.Lard
entry in the ...

. The primal cuts may be sold complete or cut further.

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 Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of ...

, a prominent

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

general and politician of the first century BC, got the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

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. The term can also be used in a semi-humorous or metaphorical way to describe someone whose actions resemble the various skills and methods of a butcher (chopping, cutting, slicing, stabbing etc.) Spanish footballer

Andoni Goikoetxea Andoni Goikoetxea Olaskoaga (born 23 August 1956), Goiko for short, is a Spanish former Association football, football centre-back and Manager (association football), manager. He was known for his aggressive play and was nicknamed "The Butcher ...

was popularly ascribed the epithet "The Butcher of Bilbao" in recognition of his perceived aggressive style of play and frequent, sometimes injurious, challenges on opposing players.

Notable butchers and butcher shops

* Dario Cecchini * Lobel's of New York *

Tom Mylan Tom Mylan (born April 26, 1976) is an American butcher, educator, writer, and author, specializing in local, sustainably raised meat. He was the executive butcher and co-owner of "The Meat Hook" from 2009 until 2015, a butcher shop in Williamsburg ...

Omaha Steaks Omaha Steaks International, Inc., known as Omaha Steaks, is a food retailer. The company is named after the city it was founded in, and its headquarters location, Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha Steaks manufactures, markets, and distributes a variety of s ...

* Arthur Orton *

Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors is a third generation meat wholesaler based in North Bergen, New Jersey that specializes in Beef aging, dry-aged steaks and artisanal hamburger, burger patty, patties but also supplies selected cuts of beef, pork, po ...

Salt Bae Nusret Gökçe (; born 1983), nicknamed Salt Bae, is a Turkish butcher, chef, food entertainer and restaurateur whose technique for preparing and seasoning meat became an Internet meme in January 2017. He owns Nusr-Et, a chain of luxury steak ho ...

Duties

Butcher shop

Primal cut

Metaphorical use

Notable butchers and butcher shops

See also

References

Further reading