Nelson

Out To Pasture (Three Part Series)

Hosted by: Nelson Harvey

Produced by: Lorenzo Ragionieri

Engineered by: Nat Weiner

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Out To Pasture focuses on what we can learn about "re-localizing" meat production in New York State by re-examining the period, as late as 1880, when New York was actually a center of the country's meat production. There is a personal twist here: It was our host's great, great, great grandfather who played a large role in de-localizing New York's meat production, when he began shipping refrigerated beef by rail from Chicago.


Episodes:
Episode 3: The Butcher Shop
Debuts At - Unscheduled

Part III of Out to Pasture is all about the butcher shops. Nelson gives us a primer on the history of butcher shops in New York City and New York State, explaining their disappearance and how this has impacted the local meat industry.

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Segments:

The Evolution of Butchery in NYC (8:25)

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Tags:
butchery, where have all the butcher shops gone?, Jake Dickson, visceral elements of butchery, in early 1960's most meat began being cut by highly automated packaging companies, 1843: private butcher shops become legal in NYC, Gustavus Swift transformed NYC's butchering trade, in recent years a new crop of butcher shops are popping up around the city, Marlow and Daughters, the tickler, captain beefheart,

The Legalization of Private Butcher Shops in NYC (11:35)

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Roger Horowitz, Hagley Museum of American Enterprise, Putting Meat on the American Table, price was the biggest reason why New Yorker's warmed up to non-local meat, meat suddenly cheaper when brought in from Chicago, Jewish kosher law states that meat must be eaten within three days of slaughter, kosher law provided huge stimulus to local meat packaging industry, changing stature of butchers, self-serve meat, boxed beef, all the skilled work is being done by workers on assembly line, butchers now are getting meat that has been boned and cut and no longer requires the preparation skills once needed to be a butcher,

Jake Dickson's New Butcher Shop (12:07)

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Dickson's Farmstand Meats: sources whole animals from farms in upstate New York and sells the meat to customers in NYC, how will butcher shop add value to Jake's existing business?, lack of processing facilities in northeast, value-added products, picking up right after slaughter and doing all the processing and packaging thereafter, Dickson's veteran butchers help customer prepare cut according to how they want to prepare meat,

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Out To Pasture (Part 2)
First Aired - 10/27/2009 02:00PM

In Part II of Out To Pasture, Nelson Harvey reports on the shortage of slaughterhouses in New York State, a unique service that connects farmers to independent custom slaughterhouses, and the challenges facing small butchers struggling to make ends meet.

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Segments:

Addressing The Slaughterhouse Shortage in NY State (9:10)

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Tags:
butchery, meat economy, shortage of slaughterhouses in NY state, slaughtering and butchering animals for a living, transformation of Mulberry Street, Thomas DeVoe, in 1830's Mulberry Street was known as Slaughter House Street, until late 1800's you couldn't refrigerate meat, had to slaughter animal very near where it was being consumed, people were locavores by necessity, privatization of slaughterhouses, Gustavus Swift helped speed the departure of slaughterhouses in New York, Swift's prices were so low because he shipped dead animals as opposed to live animals, economies of scale, Henry Ford conceived of his idea for assembly lines from Swift's butchery lines, Swift pushed small slaughterhouses out of business, acceleration and consolidation of meat industry, in meat industry it pays to be big, number of federally certified slaughter houses fell by 200 between 2001 and 2005, wave of consolidation has left local slaughterhouse industry in tatters, wait times for a farmer to get a kill time in a NY slaughter house can be as long as six months,

Kathleen Harris on the Northeast Livestock Processing Service Company (10:30)

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Kathleen Harris, Northeast Livestock Processing Service Company (NLPSC), Currytown Farms, USDA Certification, Kathleen decided to leave retail market because of absence of slaughterhouses and started selling live animals, NLPSC finds out where farmers are located and matches them up with the best fit processor, NLPSC takes and conveys a farmer's cutting instructions to the butcher, very few incidents of food born illness in small slaughterhouses, very high intensity of inspection when theres only a few animals to inspect as opposed to thousands, is a mobile slaughterhouse a possibility, farmers slaughterers and processors aren't getting rich, hard for small slaughterhouses to compete, Kathleen endorses the mobile slaughterhouse model, less travel for the animal more humane conditions,

Report from the Slaughterhouse (13:05)

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Lowell Carson, Nicholls Meat Processing, fall busiest time of year for slaughterhouses, chain mail apron, Lowell stabbed himself in the thigh last year, same material used by shark divers, Lowell taught butcher at SUNY Cobbleskill, Lowell's plant has had some difficulty following USDA regulations, USDA regulations took out 1/3 of slaughterhouses in New York State, HACCP Plan, should New York State adopt its own set of standards?, USDA regulations incentivize slaughterhouses to become bigger rather than remain small custom plants, most farmers bring their animals in for processing in the fall, farmers' markets help spread farmers' harvesting time year round,

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