FIRED My BUTCHER! What a JERK! You Won't believe What Happened!

Ma'am, if you cut a steak that's supposed to be two inches thick and it's two inches thick on one end and a quarter inch thick on the other end, I can't sell it. Well, we're the best butcher around here. We have the best butcher around here. So, if you're questioning how our butcher cuts and da da da, I fired my butcher. Guys, welcome back to the Stony Ridge Farm. It's another gorgeous day here. I am here to talk to you a little bit about when to know to fire your butcher. So, if you guys don't know, I have been working diligently here on the Stony Ridge Farm, and I'm on 150 acre first generation cattle operation here. It's all grass-fed beef. There's no sprays and no chemicals, no bull crap, no medications in these animals. This is the purest beef that you can get. Prime delicious, awesome beef. I had to fire my butcher because I couldn't sell my awesome beef to my customers with a good conscience, with confidence that what I was selling them was a premium product that was cut in a premium way and packaged and labeled premium. That was not why I fired my butcher. Here's why. If you change what you So guys, welcome back again to the Stony Ridge Farm channel. This is a beautiful place, 150 acre farm. I've been building this place for about 10 years now. And finally, about two years ago, I got to the point where I felt like I could sell beef to the public via online sales. So, I took three cows and I had them butchered. And I'm going to kind of go into detail about all of what happened here. This was super disappointing in so many ways. And I'm don't think and I want you guys to tell me what you think. But I don't think I'm being cocky. I don't think I'm being arrogant. I don't think I'm being I don't think I'm wrong in expecting excellence from my butcher. I don't think you would be wrong in expecting excellence from my beef and my farm and what I sell you. And I could not sell my beef for a couple reasons. one a government problem and the other being that my beef was improperly labeled and improperly cut. There is a level of customer service that everyone should expect from someone they're hiring to do something. So, let's give you the story here. About two years ago, I took three beeves, three cattle to the market to have them butchered. in order to have them butchered and have my own label on there which says Stony Ridge Farmer uh beef tips. This is beef tips right here. And clearly this probably is beef tips. Um in order to do that, we'll give you some cost analysis. This entire process cost me about 2,900 bucks for the three cows to get them butchered and packaged. Okay, that's three grand plus an additional $300 and something dollars just to have instead of their label on the top right here of the uh um packaging facility, my label on the top and it just says packaged for Stony Ridge Farmer established 2017. That's what it says and it's a little stock label that you could pull off the internet. It's super easy to plop that right on there. I got charged $300 and something dollars to do that. I really wasn't too happy about it, but I really didn't have any choice. I wanted my own private label on my beef so that when my customers received it, they knew they were getting quality beef from me, from my farm, not from some other fellow, some other yahoo down the road. So, I forked out that money and I forked out I think it was $2,700 bucks uh if I'm not mistaken. Neither 27 or $2,900 close to $3,000. We'll just round it at three. Uh to have three animals butchered. my hamburger, uh, beef tips, uh, steaks. I had all sorts of steaks from sirloin steaks to t-bone steaks to ribe eyes to gosh, just every cut of steak you could possibly think of. Steaks, roast, hamburger, lots and lots of hamburger. I think I ended up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,200 pounds of hamburger. That's a lot of hamburger out of those three cows. And that's okay. I understand that. I kept all the organ meat. I kept all the bones. I didn't waste anything. And if id have thought about it, I would have kept the hides and had them tanned. I just don't want to waste any part of this animal. Honestly, I just don't want to do it. It's the kind of person that I am. I want to support local business here. And I want to support these guys. These guys that run this local business. I'm not going to call them out by name, but I did want to support them. And I've also attended some events that they put on. They put on an event every single year. I think it's called the meatball where a lot of farmers can all get together and I'm just giving you some background here. A lot of farmers can all get together in camaraderie and connect with each other and talk with each other and and just get updates on what's going on at the uh at the slaughterhouse at the butcher shop. And slaughterhouse isn't really a very romantic place. But I will say that these guys, it appeared to me they took very good care of the animals. They were very humanely dispatched. Everything was clean from what I could tell. It didn't smell bad. There weren't flies everywhere and everything seemed to be great. I did feel like um when I took my animal there that I was inconveniencing someone and I did uh when I picked my meat up um nobody helped me load it up and they pulled a cart of meat out that didn't have my meat on it and I started putting it in my truck and it wasn't mine. So, I had to take it back off the truck and put it back on. I don't know how many times that's happened to other people at this place. But, it's happened to me twice now. It happened to me with my dad about three years ago, and it happened to me the next time that I went back. It seemed that that that things weren't quite uh organized in the in the handing off process. Now, I think this this same business has changed that. They're boxing it now for their customers. are doing all sorts of stuff for their customers that they didn't used to do. And that's fantastic. That's great. So, let's get into the meat and potatoes of why um what the problem was here. So, I couldn't sell my meat. And all the ribe eyes are gone right now. I I wish I had a ribeye to show you, but I couldn't sell a a package of two ribe eyes with one ribeye this big and one ribeye this big or one ribeye this big and one ribeye this big. Tiny a tiny ribeye with a big ribeye. I couldn't sell that. I needed them individually packaged to be honest with you. I also couldn't sell ribe eyes to someone. And these are grass-fed farm fresh $36 a pound high ribe eyes. Okay? And that might irritate you and it might make you mad, but for a small farmer like me, that's what we have to price our meat at in order to make a profit because I've got to raise these animals. I've got to haul them to the butcher. I've for grass-fed beef, it takes a lot longer to raise the animal. In other words, you can finish a grain-fed cow in eight around 18 months. For grass-fed, we're talking 24 to 28 months. So, this cow is over two years old. I've got a lot of time invested in it and a lot of money invested in it. And I really know that I have a very premium product. I only butcher a certain time of year because that's the turnoff with people that that eat grass-fed beef and they say, "Yuck, it's not good." Well, the reason it's not good is because it's butchered in the wintertime when the cows are eating hay. When they're eating dry, old crappy grass, they need to be butchered when the grass is in full flush, when the farm is super green and the cows are super fat. Okay? That's the way they need to be butchered. If you want good grass-fed beef, don't butcher that dag on cow in October or January because it's going to taste like dry hay and it's not good. It's not going to be good. it's not going to have as much fat on it. That being said, I got my ribe eyes back and I got a lot of steaks back. I didn't seem to get as many fillet minans as I thought I would get and I got a lot more hamburger than I thought. The ribe eyes would be, like I said, this big and they' have a fat cap about that far on the outside of the ribeye. Well, these cows were fat, man. They were fat. The meat was marbled. No customer, if you go to the butcher shop at the grocery store, hopefully you guys can see this, you're not going to buy a ribeye for $36 a pound with a fat cap on it that's 2 in tall. And if you don't know, the fat cap is just a ring of fat. Um, the New York strips had gristle in them. If you're going to take your meat to a butcher, if you people that buy premium cuts of meat like this, expect that there's not going to be any gristle when you get it home from the grocery store. You don't normally have to trim it in most cases, especially trim a fat cap that big off of their beef. Some people like a fat cap, but they don't like paying 36 bucks a pound for no fat. I'm telling you, nobody liked that. I had people look at it and roll their eyes. And I had some customers that were local that just didn't come back because the beef was expensive and it had too much waste on it. So I had to try it myself. And I would have ribe eyes, New York strips, and fillet minans, which a filt is cut 2 in thick and it would be 2 in on one end and down tapered down to almost a half inch on the other end. I can't sell that. You ain't going to buy that as a customer. You're not going to want to buy that premium cut of meat from me at a premium price and and pay that. You're just not going to want to pay that. I also had issues. I've got some pictures I took on my cell phone, so please forgive the quality, but you can see it right by the grill. And you don't want to you as the customer, here's what I'm doing is I'm protecting my customers here by by talking about this and by making this appropriate decision. So, fast forward. Um, the cuts are wrong. They're labeled wrong. So, I open my I I package it and I put it in the freezer and I have it all in sections. You've got different types of steaks, sirloin, ribeye, t-bone, all these different types of steaks, all these different cuts of meat. And they're all in different sections, different types of roast, everything. They're all in different sections in the freezer. Well, I've got some roasts that are labeled wrong. Then I started looking and I'm gonna post a picture up right here guys and you guys are going to see these are all sirloins supposedly all sirloins. There are ribe eyes in there. There are sirloins in there. There's bone in sirloin that's this big. It's like a pizza. It's this big. How am I going to sell that to my customer? I cannot sell that to my customer. I just simply cannot. There was probably five of them that were like this big and then smaller ones and smaller ones and smaller ones. I need something that I can sell to my customer. That's what I need. If I am shipping quality beef to you guys, I need to have consistency in my cuts. And I wasn't getting consistency. Now, is that worthy of firing my butcher? Some people might say yes. Post it down there. Is is it worthy of firing the butcher just for the mislabeled? In other words, I had ribe eyes that were labeled sirloin. I had different roasts that were labeled wrong. I had a lot of things that were labeled wrong. I had uh beef tips that were labeled beef heart. Somebody didn't understand English in there or didn't know what they were doing that was in the packaging part of of this abattoire of this uh slaughterhouse. You can't do that. I you can't do that to your customer and I can't sell that product to you as a customer. Is that a firew worthy decision right there? Should I have just cut ties right then? I didn't think so. And here's what I did. So, I was going to make an appointment. I had four more beefs to process, four more cows to butcher. And I was going to bring them back to the same butcher shop. But I needed to talk to management to tell them, express the concerns that I had about the prior butchering and how some of it was mislabeled and some of my cuts were tapered off like this and they had tails on them basically. Um, so I needed to discuss that and I think as a man, as a as a customer, as uh I would want someone to discuss that with me if I were running a a butcher shop or a slaughter house. I'd want him to discuss that with me so that that didn't happen and I didn't know that it happened. I probably wouldn't know unless my customer called me back and said something to me. Right. Well, it had been two years since I had the cows butchered. It's the same company. It's the same people. Uh and when I called, someone answered the phone and I asked if I could speak to a member of management uh about some of the cuts that I got with my last cow. and I want to make an appointment to bring more cows in to butcher. So, I'm on the phone and the person that's on the phone was like, "Well, what can I what can I do for you?" She was kind of sarcastic to me. And I'm just going to say that I got what I felt like was a level of arrogance that is absolutely unacceptable in business in any sort of way. In any sort of way. You know, if you want to earn people's respect and earn their business, you you really almost have to be humble in my humble opinion. Um, if someone complained to me about the fat cap on their beef, and they say, "Well, I trimmed off a pound of fat on there." I'm going to give them their 36 bucks back. I'm going to do that because that's what I think makes an honorable business owner honorable. Okay? So, I didn't ask for anything. Let's just start with that. I did not ask for any money back. I wasn't asking for any kind of refund. I wasn't asking for them to recut it, to repackage it, to re label it. I wasn't asking for anything. So, this person transferred me to a member of management who shared the same last name as the company that uh I hired to butcher my cows. The same last name. In other words, this person was one of the owners of this company, if not one of the uh upper upper upper management people. So, I talked to him and I said, "Hey, you know, here's my name. Here's my farm name. You guys have butchered cows for me several times in the past and I wanted to talk to you. I've got four cows that I need to have butchered and I wanted to talk to you about those four cows and what happened with the last batch." She's like, "Hold on a minute. Let me let me pull you up here on the computer." And I could already hear like an air of of distaste. I could already just hear it in her voice that she just didn't want to hear this. Okay, I don't care if you want to hear it. You're going to hear it. I'm going to tell you that way next time. I'm confident that you're going to do the job that I need you to do. I can't pay you three three or four. It would be 4,000 bucks basically to bring these four animals in. I can't hand you $4,000 and have you hand me something that's an inferior product. I need it cut right. I need it cut special. But I didn't say it that way. I didn't say it that way. I approached this as calmly as I'm talking to you guys. I and as gently as I possibly could. So I She said, "Yep, I see that you had a cow butchered two years ago. What could I do? What can I do for you?" And I was like, "Oh god, this is going to be this is going to get this is not going to go well." I could just tell already this is not going to go well. I said, "Well, ma'am, um, here's here's the issue. I had brought three animals in, had them butchered. I also paid the $300 something dollars to get my label printed with with my farm name on it. And I couldn't sell a lot of the beef because of the cuts." She's like, "Well, what do you want me to do about it now?" Ma'am, I I'm just going to talk to you. I'm just talking about I just need to tell you these things. Okay. Well, I can't do anything about it. It's been two years. Ma'am, I'm not asking you to do anything about it. I'm just looking for reassurance that when I bring my animals in this time and I want to talk to you about the cuts and I want to talk to you about what I experienced. Well, I can't do anything about two years. She just kept arguing with me and I kept saying to her, "Ma'am, this conversation does not need to go this way. This conversation doesn't need to go this way. I think you need to calm down and just listen to me. All I'm looking for is reassurance. Well, we're the best butcher around here. We have the best butcher around here. So, if you're questioning how our butcher cuts and da da da, I mean, she just went on and on and on. And ma'am, if you cut a steak that's supposed to be 2 in thick and it's two inches thick on one end and a quarter inch thick on the other end, I can't sell it. I can't sell it. And that is wrong. That is wrong. I'm your customer and I'm telling you what I experienced. And that's all I'm here to do is just share with you what I experienced the last time and I need reassurance from you that you guys are going to do what needs to be done here. I know things have changed in your business. I know, you know, I just need reassurance from you. Well, she just kept on and on and over and over again just arguing and yeping and yelling at me. And I just kept telling her, "Please calm down. Just calm down. I just need assurance from you that my my beef's not going to be mislabeled or miscut. And I need more fat taken off of the edge. And I can't sell gristle to my customers for 36 bucks a pound. I can't do it. It needs to be presented to my customers in packaging that is attractive, that it's labeled correctly, and when they open the package, they need to either rinse it off or just slap it right on the grill with some seasoning, and that's it. They don't need to be trimming off a half a pound of a of a steak. She kept on yelling and yelling and and being hateful to me. And finally, I said, "Ma'am, do you want to earn my business for this next round of cows? I want to give you my business. I attended your events. I care about your business." I told her this. And she proceeded to continue to berade me and yell at me. And finally, I just said, "You're fired. You're fired. You're done. I'm done with you. And it's not because of the quality of what you've done for me. It's because of your attitude." And I hung the phone up. What do you guys think about that? Did I make the right decision? I, you know, when I'm on the phone with somebody, and I almost recorded this conversation. I totally would have. I didn't expect it to go that way. All I wanted to do was get reassurance from her. Josh, I'm so sorry that that that happened. Rest assured that will not happen this time. You know, sometimes we make a mistake and that's okay. And I've told her I understand sometimes mistakes get made, but there was just too many of them. In the end, I didn't expect perfection from these folks. I didn't expect that everything was always going to be right. It is hard to find a butcher shop, a slaughter house locally here. It is very hard. There's one of like three within 150 miles of here. And I felt like this. Either you bring it to us or you don't. And we don't care. And I ain't going to do business with people like that. It wasn't my fault that the cuts were wrong. It wasn't my fault that they were mislabeled. It wasn't my fault that there was too much fat on it. It wasn't my fault that there was gristle on there. But I was willing to accept it. I just needed to have a conversation to get some reassurance from this person. And they didn't do it. What do you guys think? Was I being Was I in the wrong asking for this? So, that's why I fired my butcher. It's not because of the cuts of meat. The meat is delicious. It's awesome. It's because of the attitude of the business owner. And that's just sad. It's sad that I had to do that. Guys, please post comments. Tell me about your experiences, too, down there. Thank you so much for joining me here on the Stony Ridge Farm. I'm going to get over here and move the cows. It's supposed to be 97° today,…