This year, Americans are expected to eat a record amount of red meat and poultry for an average of 222 pounds a person. This is great news for small butcher shops, as they begin seeing a trend of more meat eaters shopping there opposed to the larger grocery stores.
Marczyk Fine Foods in Denver, Colorado is one of those small shops. Operations Director Mark Johnson says their meat is “amazingly different.” Johnson says the store has been getting their meat from the same farm since they opened 16 years ago.
“Never biotics, never meat products in an animal feed,” explains Johnson.
That level of quality is just one reason why Marczyk and other butcher shops around the country are seeing a renaissance of sorts, as supermarket competition ramps up.
“Our sales just keep climbing every year,” Johnson says.
Two-thirds of consumers say clean eating is a path to better eating, according to research done by the consumer market research firm NPD Group. Additionally, a survey by the Pew Research Center found 4 in 10 Americans favor organic and non-GMO foods.
“People are just becoming a lot more, wanting to be more aware of where their food comes from,” says Johnson.
Johnson says workers at Marczyk can tell their customers details about where their meat comes from.
“We know exactly what goes into our ground beef,” he says. “We grind it.”
That gives them and other local butchers a tighter connection to the supply chain than larger stores.
“We get phone calls; we have conversations we shop with people,” Johnson says. “You know we, at times, have to explain why or why our filets are priced where they are or where the quality is.”
These butcher shops hope by providing great food with a personal touch, they can continue to thrive.
