A meat cutter prepares

primal cut A primal cut or cut of meat is a piece of meat Meat is animal Tissue (biology), tissue, often muscle, that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and farmed other animals for meat since prehistory. The Neolithic Revolution allowed the domesti ...

s into a variety of smaller cuts intended for sale in a

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholes ...

environment. The duties of a meat cutter largely overlap those of the

butcher A butcher is a person who may Animal slaughter, 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 ...

, but butchers tend to specialize in pre-sale processing (i.e., reducing carcasses to primal cuts), whereas meat cutters further cut and process the primal cuts per individual customer request. In the U.S., the job title of "butcher" has been mostly replaced in corporate storefronts in the last two decades after customer trends showed that modern, particularly urban, customers increasingly associated the term with animal slaughter and unsanitary conditions (regardless of the condition of the store). With the advent of off-premises, pre-packaged, supermarket meat, many supermarkets now avoid mention of either cutting or butchering and simply call their meat cutters "Meat Department Associates", or similar. In the U.K., the term butcher is still used to describe a person who offers for retail sale meat ready for cooking by the customer. They will also prepare cuts, joints, etc., for the customer. Most U.K. corporate retailers still use the term butcher for their meat department operatives.

Overview

A meat cutter is responsible to prepare standard cuts of meat (including

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting animal products such as meat, Eggs as food, eggs or feathers. The practice of animal husbandry, raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typ ...

and

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

) to be sold in either a self-serve or specialty counter. In the UK the term used for retail meat cutter, is still butcher. Retail meat cutters are found in a customer-oriented, retail environment. This can be anything from a small family-owned meat shop to a large international

supermarket chain A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...

. Meat cutters are a registered trade. Industrial meat cutters are found in production-oriented facilities, and generally perform fewer tasks, but repeatedly. The term "meat cutters" typically deal with "primal" cuts - segments of the carcass broken down into smaller (but still unfinished) pieces to make them easier to handle.

Working conditions

Retail meat cutters traditionally work indoors, in large, refrigerated rooms, with temperatures ranging between 2 and –4 degrees

Celsius The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius temperature scale "Celsius temperature scale, also called centigrade temperature scale, scale based on 0 ° for the melting point of water and 100 ° for the boiling point ...

. These environments are kept sanitary, and are washed every day with powerful antibacterial cleaners. In larger retail outlets or plant-facilities, working environments are generally equipped with power tools such as

band saw A bandsaw (also written band saw) is a power saw with a long, sharp blade consisting of a continuous band of toothed metal stretched between two or more wheels to cut material. They are used principally in woodworking, metalworking, and lumb ...

s and circular slicers. Meat cutters are also generally required to be in good physical shape; the duties of a meat cutter include standing for long periods of time, regularly lifting over 50 lbs, and working in cold conditions. Retail meat cutters also often have to deal with customers.

Duties

The duties of a retail meat cutter often include the trimming of

s, making

ground meat Ground meat, called mince or minced meat outside North America, is meat finely chopped by a meat grinder or a chopping knife. A common type of ground meat is ground beef, but many other types of meats are prepared in a similar fashion, incl ...

out of trimmings from the primal cuts, ensuring meat cuts are displayed in an eye-catching manner and are of sufficient quality, and serving customized orders to customers. Retail meat cutters are also responsible to keep their working areas clean, and ensure that proper sanitization procedures are followed.

References

{{meat Food services occupations Meat industry

Overview

Working conditions

Duties

See also

References