A Meaty Decision

gonna call a great transformation. Basically, COVID has motivated a lot of people to re evaluate what they do for work every day, changing the way in which they do their job and inspiring a lot of people to leave their stable careers altogether. Well, today we talked to Scott who took an enormous risk leaving his work and marketing to do something completely different. Did ever have a week's stomach?

No um, even the first time, being around like a dead animal like, I don't know it never really like bothered me. This is Scott Kerry, and having a strong stomach is kind of a requirement for his new line of work. I am a whole animal butcher and I own Slate Belt Butchery We're located in Sailorsburg, Pennsylvania. Sailorsburg is just north of Allentown, Pennsylvania, a big city but surrounded by lots of farmland. Pretty ideal for being a

whole animal butcher. It's a little different than like a retail butcher, where we're selling behind a case to customers that walk in. We are actually um a farm processor, so we take animals from the farms. When we process them down from carcass to cut. Scott doesn't do the slaughter that happens at a different facility, and then he has the animals delivered to him. He breaks them down into different cuts and packages them for retail for the

farmers to sell however they'd like. So we're basically the middleman between a farmer and the end user. After over a decade in marketing, Scott opened Slate Belt Butchery in August. They've only been opened a little over a year, but they are busy. A big part of that is there's not a lot of small processors doing what he does anymore. Number one, I think a lot of butchers are retiring and they're not passing on their their trade to like someone else. This is true, big agriculture has had a

huge impact on small family farming. Another reason. Scott believes today's world values a four year college degree over learning a trade skill. And so, like a lot of butchers that I talked to you that are retiring, like they just can't find the workforce or people that really want to do the work. I mean it's it's like it's dirty, it's cold, it's not like the most glamorous job. But for anyone who's willing to do it, there's not a shortage of work out there because it's needed, you know,

like there's so many farms out there that need processing. Um. We work really hard, you know, um, every day. So a day in the life at Slate Belt Butchery, it starts pretty early. I mean we I wake up at five am, um, and then I'm usually in the shop by six am. He and his crew have a team meeting. Scott delegates what everyone's doing for the day. It's like here's what we're gonna do, here's who I want doing what, um, and then we just get to work, like making sausage.

I'll put someone on sausage, or slicing bacon, or breaking down animals. Scott does a little of everything, but he's more on the logistical end. Now he's got two full time butchers, someone for packing, a driver and his business partner, Mike. And Mike is like less on the business side and

more on the production side. So Mike's really good at like just leading the breakdown of animals, and like it's like, okay if I like step away to like handle customers, because I'm like keeping the business coming through the doors, and Mike is keeping the business going out the doors so we can bring more business in. Still he hops in wherever needed. Some days they're making ground beef, some

days they're carrying hams. They've got a smokehouse, so some days they're busy smoking bell season all kinds of other cuts. Halfway through my day, I usually step away to answer phone calls, handle emails. When we first started, it was just me and Mike just cutting and processing, and I would say, like I was probably holding a knife a

lot more during those times. But they've been doing so well and they've gotten so much business over this past year that taking in new customers is a job all in itself, honestly, Like you tell one farmer, hey, there's a new processor in town, Like three farmers are gonna call me. Scott got in at the right time. Locally sourced food is in more demand than ever, and at the same time, small processors like him are harder and

harder to come by. Yeah, if we're not around, it's it's gonna be nothing but these massive, big agg facilities, and then you're not gonna have any local meat. A lot of butchers going to the trade because that's what their parents did or that's the industry they grew up around.

Not the case for Scott. He grew up about an hour north of where he now around scrant His dad was an I T. He had to stay at home, mom and my whole like basically a childhood, it was it was like go to college, get a four year degree. Like there was no real like talk about like trades, no matter like who you would go talk to you, whether it was a teacher or your parents or friends. Like everyone was going to college and so that was

my path. Scott's high school experience was similar to mine, and that we had a trade school attached to our high school building where kids could go learn plumbing and mechanics and electrical work. But they did have a reputation trade school was almost like one step away from like Juvie, Like it was like the bad kids went there. For me, looking back, I think that trade school that I grew up around had a bad rat because it was just a very working class environment, which is pretty messed up.

And it was just like I was conditioned to like just think that I didn't even think about going to a trade It was just like, Oh, you're gonna go to college and then all right, you're gonna major in like the sciences, liberal arts or like business or something, you know what I mean. Like I didn't even think that like going to school to be like a butcher or a chef, or like an electrician or plumber. Like it wasn't mean like a thought that it didn't man

occur to me that I could do that. After high school, he immediately went to King's College in his hometown and decided he'd get a degree in marketing. Did you know you wanted to get a marketing degree or did you just kind of like throw a dart at the board and just say that's what I'm doing. The reason, the real reason why I did it because I played drums in a band and I liked the opportunity to like booking my band or like making flyers or something. And

I was just like, well, what is this. It's a marketing I was like, well, I like this. Let me let me just majoring in Well, how the how the band work out? I didn't. Well, he did know is that someday, somehow he wanted to be an entrepreneur and maybe this is the way to do that. He graduated in two thousand nine, immediately got an internship at a marketing company, and then started working there full time. I knew pretty early on, like I was like, man, this

is exactly what I didn't want to do. It didn't feel like me um personally like I'm I felt I feel really antsy when I like sit down and I'm just sitting in a computer, Like I can't like sit still. I like working with my hands. But he was doing Google ads and Facebook ads analytics. He was getting paid well, but he was not enjoying it. The entire time I was going to school, I was thinking like, I don't want to sit in a cubicle. I don't want to work in like a corporation. But that's what I was

going to school for. While I was doing it, and I was just like, man, like the career that is waiting for me at the end of this, like I don't even know if I want to do it. And I actually went and I did it for ten years. That first job lasted a few years, and then you got another one, a two year contract and I and I was still doing like web analytics or intern up marketing. They offered me good money, and I was like, I

was only doing it for two years. I was like thinking to myself, well, maybe I'll get a promotion a couple of years down the road and and maybe it will work out for me or something. But the whole time he knew there's got to be something else out there, um, and I would always try to find like these little side hustles and do little things to try to get myself out of there. He built custom drums for people

going back to his music days. That didn't work out, so we started any commerce store selling school supplies and so like, once I did it and it was starting to run, I was like getting these like customer service calls. I was like, yeah, this is like too much for me. And it was only like twenty three at the time, so I didn't really like understand what it takes to run a business. I was kind of more like like a entrepreneur, a entrepreneur. Yeah you ever hear that that phrase.

That's the first time I've ever heard that. Yeah, Like you like want to be like a business owner, but you really don't have, like you don't know what it takes to do that. Yeah, you don't know what it takes. At some point, he also pitched a cust and design card deck on Kickstarter, but he didn't get the funding. The years passed and he eventually got married to a wonderful woman named Nancy. He bought a house, he had bills to pay, and at a certain point his career

felt like a sunken cost. He built a life around it, and he felt stuck. Eventually, I you know, while working in the office and stuff, it actually started to like affect my mental health and I became like very depressed. I think like the Kickstarter thaying like really like took it over the edge for me and really like messed with my head a little bit because I felt like, man, if I can't even get like a Kickstarter project funded for a couple of thousand dollars, like I'm not I'm

not gonna be able to do anything. I just like I remember like coming home from like my job and just like for a couple of months, I was just like laying on my couch and just like just being completely like depressed, and like I think at that point was like when it was like okay, like you gotta make like a change, like there's something you have to do something here, I was like, do I go back to school? Like I was kind of at a crossroads,

like what do I do. Scott was working as a web producer for a hospital at this point, doing their analytics,

running their web page. It was monotonous, but at the time, like I was getting really into like backyard barbecue and I was just like dabbling back there, and just like every weekend I was just like trying different things while I was kind of like depressed and like defeated from like all these failures and the like my side hustles, and I was like still working this job that I wasn't percent happy with, but like I was finding like

happiness just cooking on the weekends. It was the first time that Scott was doing something on the side that he wasn't trying to grow into a business or make

a quick buck off the just like brisket. What happened was as I, um, my wife knew that, like I was very like unhappy with my career or she was like like, you need to do something because this is like affecting like everything, and so like before I even like quit my job in marketing, I was like, well, let me get like a part time job, just like like on the weekends, like working for like a butcher shop.

He figured he likes barbecuing, but there weren't a lot of barbecue restaurants around and he wanted to learn more about meat. So butchering seemed like a good fit and you get to supply his backyard barbecue have it. But then also like it would just it would get me active, get me out of the house, get me away from my other job, and it would just give me something to do, you know what I mean. And so that's what I end up doing it. We'll get back to

Scott's story right after the break. A strong work ethic, it takes pride in a job well done, sweats over the details. This is you. But to get an honest day's work. Do you need a response? You need a call back, you need a job. Express Employment professionals can help because we understand what it takes to get a job. It takes more than just online searches to land a job. It takes someone who will identify your talents, a person

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Scott realized he needed to make a change and started reaching out to butchers in his area, seeing if anyone needed part time work. One of them said yes, and I went in. I told him, I was like, I have no experience like doing this. It's like I'm just like cooking in my backyard. And they they took a shot on me and they brought me on and I worked basically Saturday and Sunday for like a couple of hours every day for about six months. I should say here that the guy who did take a chance on

him was Mike, the guy who would become Scott's business partner. Okay, so Scott starts working in this butcher shop. I like learning about like the different cuts. Like I had no idea I cooked a brisket and I had no idea where on the on the cow where it came from. I got cooked the pork butt and I thought it came from the pork's butt, and actually is the pork shoulder. So like I was like learning all these things, and I was like, well, what's a try tip? And I'm like, well,

what's the top round? And like what are all these things that I'm like, like I'm starting to cook, he inhaled knowledge. Loved learning the craft. He started talking to customers more and answering questions. He started looking forward to weekends when he would get back into the shop. And that's where I realized that, like, this is what I

love to do. Like at first, it was just like I'm just gonna do it just to like get away, And what it turned it into is like me like finding like my love and like me finding like this is what want to do full time. Scott told his wife Nancy he wanted to do this. They knew their lives would change because he wouldn't have his marketing salary coming in, but she still supported him, like in my opinion, like that's love right there, you know what I mean, Like she wanted to see me happy. Like we just

like how to go live within our means. He put it in his notice at the hospital web producer job he had and started working full time in the butcher shop. All he wanted to do at first would learn the craft, and he was excited, but he immediately got thrown into the packing room, not cutting me at all, thinking to myself like, man, I quit my job and now all

I'm doing this packing boxes and it sucked. But like at the same time, like I remember like stepping back and thinking to myself, well, I'm learning the business here, like if I just keep my eyes and years open, like I'm learning how this whole how product enters the building and leaves the building. It's where you realized that the craft of butchering is really just half of it.

You can make like great charcuterie. But like if you don't know anything about the business, like you're probably gonna fault apart. Eventually he got to do every part of the business, including how to process an animal and cut meat. He says, more than anything, this job taught him the entire business, and it taught him how to work. Because they were busy. I always thought like, man, like there's

massive demand for this. Like when I was there, I was like, he was like turning people away, Like he was booked out two years, you know what I mean. He really couldn't get people. And I was like, I was like, where are these people gonna go? Like where are they going? You know, where do they go? I don't know, Like they send their animals to auction and they go like across country or something, you know, Like they don't Once an animal goes to auction, they can

go anywhere. So after two years in the shop, Scott could finally call himself a butcher. I learned how to make sausage and charcuterie. But what I really learned is like there's like a massive business opportunity. Right around this time, Nancy Broker leg And was out of a job. Scott wasn't making much money in the butcher shop, so he left to get another job in marketing to pay the bills for the time being. It was kind of tough, but I was always like, Okay, I'm gonna come back

to this back home. He used his skills in the off time to make kill BOSSI for family and friends, and he was making enough where he was doing custom orders deliveries huge batches, and then I ended up creating a can LLLC because I was like, well, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna I'm gonna make good money doing it. Scott finally felt that he

wasn't a entrepreneur anymore. He still wanted to start a business, but now he knew what it took to do it, and he had the work ethic to make it happen. I got like a commercial kitchen set up, and I got inspected, and I was going through the process of just like doing like little little sales here and there, and I signed up for like a farmers market, and

then COVID happened. The commercial kitchen he was in shutdown, so he started calling around to other butchers seeing if they'd help impack his products, and on one call one of his connections said, better yet, I know a guy who built a butcher shop and it's it's sitting empty right now. He's not using it, and that like I envisioned this entire thing in that phone call. The guy who built this kitchen was a farmer. Because there's not

a lot of small butchers out there. Some farmers try to vertically integrate by doing all the processing themselves, but this is a huge undertaking, which is why this guy wasn't really using it. When I got up there, I was like, man, this is perfect, this is everything I need and and he wasn't using it. So he started running it to me and I started using it. Additionally, Scott offered to do the processing for this farmer, which was a good deal of work and he needed help.

He called up his former boss, Mike, who was working in a kitchen somewhere at the time, and he was he was like on board. He came up that weekend, we talked it out. Are in the numbers, like this is a no brainer, Like I didn't have to build the building. I knew that there was other farms that are going to want processing. So in August, Mike and Scott officially started as Slate Belt Butchery. It was crazy because it was just like we had one customer and

then like the next month, we got two customers. Third months we got three customers, and so on. I felt like every month we got the same amount of customers, but like additional, additional. Yeah, by three months and you had six customers. Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. From there, like it was just like a snowball. They picked up another big client in Philly. They hired a driver to pick up animals and do deliveries. On average, we were doing five ten animals a week, which was manageable for us,

but pretty soon they were doing more. He hired his first new butcher and then another. I think one week we did over thirty animals. Um, we're up to forty customers right now, and in December I hired a full time packer. Within a year, you had forty customers and six or seven employees. There's five full time employees and we have like one part time employee. That is rapid grows. Yeah, it is crazy. I don't know. I feel like we're like growing out of the walls that we're currently in.

He told me that something was in the works regarding that they wouldn't tell me what, but Slight Belt Butchery just keeps growing. Because there is so much demand for smaller processors like him. Someone just called me today. They're from Massachusetts and they need meat processing. They're having trouble up there to get meat processing. I'm like, you're gonna drive like five hours coming. He's like, He's like, be honest with you, I would because I can't find anyone

that can do it for me up here. Bigger processing facilities dominate the market right now, and generational businesses like butchering have been on the decline. Scott does hope that his story does set an example for other people in this community who want to do something like this. There's a lot of people willing to do this type of work because I don't know if they're not really being introduced to it. So if you could go back and introduce young Scott to butchering, um would you do it?

Would I change that? Probably? Not? Like Like who knows, Like if someone pushed me to be a butcher when I was eighteen, like what I have turned away from it. Like I'm very proud of the fact that I'm a first generation butcher, Like it wasn't in my family. No one pushed me to be a butcher, Like I kind of found this on my own, whereas it's the opposite with like marketing, Like I feel like college was like

pushed on me from a young age. I'm kind of glad that I was able to like go through that really low period and like I found what I was passionate about doing and I was able to come out of it. I don't know where I'd be if I never found this, but I don't want to think about that. You took a huge risk when you jump from your career to do this. How do you feel now? I'm very like just hopeful for the future. I visualize a

lot about what is going to happen. Whereas like in the past, like when I was like really low, I didn't ever do that. Like I never like visualized, I never like I didn't I didn't get excited about things, and I always felt like it wasn't gonna turn out for me. Scott never really believed he could get out of marketing. He did once he became a butcher. He

didn't really think he could start his own shop. He did, and even then he still never thought that it would be his career and that he'd have employees and be working around the clock doing something he loved, like we did all that. I did all that, and like I don't like sit there like in sulk. Really, I used to brood a lot. I think I've done the least

amount of that in the last year. The Great resignation, so it's called the last couple of years, has been happening for a lot of reasons, but at its core, it feels like the philosophy of how we work in our daily lives has shifted. A lot of people went into careers before because that was the path laid out for them. It was something clear and certain, But faced with the uncertainty of COVID and the lives realistically lost

to it, we're reevaluating. Before maybe it always felt like we had time and certainty on our sides, so why risk big changes because it will work out eventually. But now without those certainties, and it feels like anything could happen at any time. It just feels like, how could you not make a change if it has the chance

of making you happy? Because I don't want to sound like cliche or whatever, like because you said kind of positive like outlook, you gotta think like man, like I'm capable of doing anything or taking this business as far as I want Now now it's like I feel like the sky's the limit for On the job, I'm a discray