Craft butchery elevates Ontario lamb position with consumers, retailers

Brent Herrington’s easy patter never faltered while he transformed a whole lamb carcass into value-added and traditional cuts.

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Throughout his hour-long craft butchery presentation, attendees of the Ontario Sheep Farmers’ October meeting peppered him with questions on retail prices and techniques.

For Herrington, it’s an opportunity to express his gratitude to producers who provide top-quality materials, and show them the potential of their animals at a retail level.

“You say OK, here’s your lamb. Let me show you a wow factor of what you’ve done,” he said. “Let’s take something and put a whole new spin on it and make you sit back and go, ‘damn, that looks good.’”

Why it matters: An award-winner Ontario butcher says a more local approach, in which producers and butchers work together to promote the diversity of lamb and mutton, could maximize profits for each sector.

Live craft butchery demonstrations can spark enthusiasm and recognition for the calibre of Ontario lamb and other locally produced livestock, while revealing premium products that can elevate consumer appreciation.

According to Herrington, there is a disconnect between the 1970s-style butcher trade and today’s social media-driven modern consumer who prioritizes quality over price and has a desire to experiment with premium products alongside traditional cuts.

“As a supplier to the industry, you need someone who’s going to create what the demand is,” he said, and that includes moving away from the charge-by-the-pound approach.

“You need to take a little bit more time, do things differently, and create what people want and maybe have to charge and pay more for it.”

Herrington said consumers need knowledge of meal potential, especially given the limited middle-meat cut selection offered at large retailers. That creates another hurdle easily overcome with proper guidance from a craft butcher.

“Being a retail butcher, I’m able to be right on the front line with the consumer,” he said. “I can engage, make them feel comfortable, and help them get what they need for a wonderful dining experience.”

Compared to large retail meat counters, a retail butcher provides higher quality cuts at a competitive price once the consumer understands the butcher has removed all the undesirables.

“I do one thing, and I better do it right, or else I’m out of business,” he said. “If that steak you bought at the butcher shop isn’t good, you go back to the butcher. What do you think Costco says?”

The industry needs to shift into the thought of craft and make it consumer-driven, said Herrington, and move to a producer-abattoir-retailer flow.

“You need to go from A, and the end result should be B or even C because you’ve got the abattoir on the way. You have to … listen to people, producers. Even me dealing with retail all day long, understanding what people want, being open-minded, and being up on trends.”

Consumer demand drives production decisions, but it also creates challenges regarding what the ideal market lamb carcass looks like.

Herrington said the fat coverage he likes in lamb is the opposite of the lean carcass that Wahab Zamani of Simcoe Street Meats Packers needs for his Muslim clientele.

“That’s been our perennial problem in the sheep industry; we don’t get enough contact (around) what’s wanted by whom. It’s been a real battle,” said Herrington

There’s also the ongoing argument about whether to keep the industry niche or make it into a commodity.

He said the lamb carcass competition presentation hosted by Zamani and Bill McCutcheon, a producer and lamb merchandiser for Ontario Lamb Marketing Inc., taught him a lot.

“Listening to him (Zamani) talk about the briskets and the general overall structure of the lamb, I loved that,” Herrington said, adding that preslaughter attention to detail from hoof to tail provides insight on producer-level animal care.

The competition classifies carcasses based on muscle score, tissue depth and general carcass shape and scoring, said McCutcheon.

He said lamb carcasses are getting larger and leaner through optimized genetics and feeding programs.

“You need fat for preservation of the carcass, taste, and cover appeal. You don’t want it excessive. What would have been interesting is if Brent weighed that box he kept throwing stuff into under the table. There wasn’t a lot in it.”

Ontario Lamb Marketing breaks lambs between 22 and 27 kilograms into ready cuts, not the premium cuts and custom butchery Herrington displayed.

“God, that was awesome. Just the creativity he had of stuff on those carts and boning that out — he’s a real professional. It’s pretty impressive,” McCutcheon said.

“I think (producers) should be pretty impressed there are partners in the industry that take what we produce and create something amazing.”

The highlight for Herrington may have been Zamani’s comment that he had learned new things.

“To be complimented by someone in my industry who knew exactly what I was doing — that was great,” he said. “Being judged by your peers is very hard, so that was incredible.”