Focus on local business
Old-school butcher shops, once the prime market for prime meats, are far outnumbered by supermarket meat departments.
But area butchers believe selling a product that consistently provides precisely what customers want is the key to drawing and retaining business.
Zink Meat Market of Franklin caters to those with carnivorous appetites by giving better service than what’s available at grocery stores.
“We trim it better than anybody does,” said owner Dale Zink, whose family has operated the market for five generations, stretching back to Zink’s grandfather and father and moving forward to his son and grandchildren, who are part of the store’s staff.
Various methods used daily at the 3,200-square-foot butcher shop ensure freshness for its beef and pork products.
“A lot of places use frozen stuff, but we use all fresh product,” he said. “We cut and grind everything ourselves. We don’t get it in pre-cut.”
The store makes hundreds of pounds of sausage each Thursday, everything from Wisconsin brats and Italian sausage to casing, little links and jalapeno cheddar sausage, plus its own homemade rubs and seasonings.
“We sell them individually or any amount you want,” Zink said. “We have some people who want us to make up their own recipe, and we do.”
Customers hungry for customized cuts include area residents who won’t settle for grocery-bought meats, whether they’re here or elsewhere.
“When people go to Florida for the winter, they buy meat to take with them and when they come back, they do it, too,” Zink said. “We’ve got people coming up from Tennessee. They’ll buy for two or three months.”
Gregory Meyman II, who bought Gentile Meats in Hamilton in 2007, said butcher shops are staying alive because big-name grocery stores no longer butcher their own meat.
“Our product is definitely fresher,” he said. “I cut everything here. I fill the case every day. I know where it came from, when it was put in the case and how long it’s going to be there and the quality’s usually better.”
Butcher shops are also more adept at adapting to what customers want, Meyman said.
“If you come in here and you don’t like the look of a T-bone (steak), and you want one that’s an inch-and-a-quarter ... I’ll go back and I’ll cut it for you as long as I’ve got the piece of meat to cut,” he said.
The attention to detail shown by the 2,000-square-foot butcher shop ensures a product that is far superior to grocery store meat, Meyman said.
“With one person taking a look at every piece of meat, if there’s something not right with it, it’s not going to get put out,” he said. “The freshness, the taste, is completely different from what you’re going to buy in a grocery store.”
It also helps that Gentile Meats carries Creekstone Farms Premium Black Angus, a line of all natural products that are delivered in sections and cut down in-house for the store’s case.
“It’s an all-natural beef, which is what a lot of people are looking for now, and it’s very hard to find,” Meyman said. “I think that I’m the only one in the area who carries it.”
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