yesterday while in a meat shop in atlanta, Ga. I was asked this question again, Are you a Master Butcher, My reply is No, I'm a certified journeyman meat cutter. I was certified in 1972, Atlanta, Ga. by the Amalgamated local 442.
At the time of my certification I had been a meat cutter of 13 years, a cutting room manager of four markets, market manager of two high volume markets, one of which was 110,000.00 a week. All were no-union. In 2001 I reach a mile stone in my career, I was certified a journeyman meat cutter by Winn-Dixie. A life time dream LOL
From Wikipedia,
In Europe, Master butcher is a profession for which one has to be trained and schooled. Typically the training lasts for four years. Once the initial apprenticeship is completed one can choose to continue with further training and schooling for an additional year to archive the status of a certified master butcher. The trades in Europe are organized in trade guilds and members of the guild are respected people in the community, especially butchers and bakers.
Conversely in North America no particular training schedule exists. Some jurisdictions demand nothing more than a course in food safety and hygiene. The rest of the training is one job without any further schooling. There are now efforts beening made to give butchers a recognized status as a trade. These efforts are not on a federal level but rather on a state or province level. Neither are these efforts are backed up by any particular laws but rather organized by unions
There are three categories, the apprentice, journeyman and master. The apprentice would work for a master for a number of years until graduating to journeyman. At this point the journeyman would work for a number of different shops and had a high level of skill. The journeyman could attend a school to earn their master degree which would typically take about two years. They would learn all facets of the industry including slaughter, selection of animals, food safety and disease detection. They may learn sausage, ham, smoking, curing and various preservation techniques. They would also receive a business education and understand profit margin
Below is a requirement to apply for a Master Butchers job You possess sound knowledge and skills in the production processes and the creation of recipe for ham and sausages.
As I have said before in other posts I have never had the chance to learn this part on being a meat cutter, butcher. I think that the knowledge and skills of sausage making would be a big part of learning to be a Master Butcher as their are so many types.
Germany claims more than 1200 types of sausages or wurst UK alone, there are believed to be over 470 different types of sausages.
Below is a list of sausage that I have never even heard the name of 2/3 of them.
Andouille Blood Blutwurst Bockwürste Boudin Braunschweiger Breakfast Butifarra Cabanossi Cervelat Chảlụa Chinese sausage Chipolata Chorizo Corizo de Bilbao Country Currywurst Duck Embutidos Fuet Glamorgan sausage Haggis HotDog Käsekrainer Kielbasa Kishka Knackwurst Kovbasa Kransky Landjäger Lap cheong Lebanon bologna Linguiça Liver sausage Longaniza Loukaniko Lukanka Matamis Merguez Mettwurst
I've heard the blood and liver sausages are terrible! And I think anymore there are fewer and fewer journeyman cutters. I've never had a chance to be labeled but would assume I fall somewhere between a high level apprentice to low level journeyman. Most of my skills are self taught or been shown by a experienced cutter. We don't have time for labeling ourselves...we just cut the stuff. :)
In my neck of the woods, I'm considered a journeyman. Being able to make sausage or ham isn't really a requirement in Texas, as the aren't hugely popular items. The way I see it, experience, skill, and a lack of mistakes dictate the level of butcher. I've been cutting room manager of 4 markets and have ran 1. I can go into most markets now and teach most cutters some tricks. I learn my tricks from the market managers who have been in the trade 20, 30, 40 years. The way we (Texans) see it down here, a journeyman is someone who can walk into a market on their first day and take control of the tables. I've never met anyone who is considered a master butcher. Only Kroger is union here; unions are frowned upon in Texas. A good cutter will get good money, and will usually get promoted in a short amount of time.
I always considered a butcher someone who slaughters and processes the animal. A meat cutter takes it from there. A butcher and meat cutter are two different things, in most cases. I've known several master cutters but few master butchers.
i find alotta guy in big citys like toronto, nyc, take culinary arts get a job with a decent butcher for 4 or 5 month ......and they are master butchers..lol.....
like t bone i learned from guys with 30 40 years in the business....so i consider my self a good meat cutter........i know a lot but can always learn a lot more i think if i was a master with nothing to learn i would get pretty bored of this job
when they hired me at Giant in va. they had the choice of calling me apprentice, journeyman or manager (not master) they called me journeyman its all based on payscale there. they thought i had enough experience to get the journeyman pay. I never met anyone who is a certified MASTER meat cutter, but i met lots of people who i would consider master at the trade whether or not they have papers that say it. I would say lets just keep doing our jobs the best we can and keep learning more and more as we go. as cowboy likes to say you never know it all there is always more to learn. So i would say even if someone has papers that say they are a master cutter they probably still have lots of stuff they learn as they go. I don't consider myself to be a journeyman or a master. I just say i am good meatcutter and I always try to be better as I learn more. I don't think i ll ever tell anyone I am a MASTER and if someone tells me he is a master I ll probably say maybe you are but i bet i could show you a thing or two you didn't know.
I worked in a buthcer shoppe owned by germans, his dad that started the shoppe was a a master Butcher. He had to attend schooling over there to get that title.
I am a Certified Master Chef, Certified Pastry Chef, Certified Garde Mange Chef, Journeyman Meat Cutter and a Certified Master Sausage Maker......I think I could ace that test
__________________
Joe Parajecki
Operations Manager/ Partner
Kettle Range Meat Company, Milwaukee WI
Member Meat Cutter Hall of Fame and The Butcher's Guild
I really enjoyed it....sure wish I could still make some things...some things are the BEST right out of the smoker!!!!
I used to make my own: pepperoni, beefstick, landjaegers, jerky, smoked chicken, smoked fish, smoked turkeys (those were a huge hit at thanksgiving time) bologna, salami, hotdogs, andoulie, hungarian hotdogs, and more just cant think of all them now....
funny thing is I still have the recipies with me at home to this day....just in case!!!
I just reading passed threads and revived this one as I might have some input.
A Master Butcher in the UK is a person that can take an amimal form "Gate to Plate". I personally class my self as a lowly "Traditional Butcher" I have certificates for ham,and bacon and won sausage compititions. I learn my skills in the biggest national wholesale/retail butchers in the uk ,in the 70s. We where schooled and slaughterhouse trained in those days, but mostly shop. Fish also played a part all to do with knife skills .When I worked in processing plants beef , lamb, pork,poultry also game, The cutters where only that in these factories, the butchers usually where head of the table and paid more to oversee production Nowadays I only run a small seaside butchers shop with 3-4 staff in the summer, hopefully my last before I retire.
Sorry to rattle on about me I should maybe put this on my profile but heyho.
