A Meaty Decision

Scott Carey leaves his stable, decade-long career in marketing to make a risky move doing something he loves – being a butcher. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ye, Welcome to On the Job. This season, we're focusing
on how people and businesses are getting back to work.
Let's call it a great transformation, a change in the
way workers are thinking. Employers need people to work more

(00:20):
than ever, putting laborers in a sort of position of power.
We'll be hearing from people navigating this new normal for
themselves as they find their life's work. In the last
couple of years, the workforce has been experiencing what we're
gonna call a great transformation. Basically, COVID has motivated a
lot of people to re evaluate what they do for

(00:41):
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?

(01:02):
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

(01:24):
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

(01:47):
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.

(02:07):
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

(02:29):
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,

(02:52):
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.

(03:13):
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.

(03:35):
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

(03:55):
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

(04:17):
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

(04:37):
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

(04:59):
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.

(05:20):
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,

(05:42):
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

(06:02):
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

(06:24):
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

(06:45):
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

(07:06):
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

(07:27):
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.

(07:50):
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

(08:12):
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.

(08:35):
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.

(08:58):
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

(09:20):
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

(09:41):
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,

(10:02):
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

(10:23):
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

(10:46):
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

(11:07):
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,

(11:28):
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

(11:51):
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find your location at Express pros dot com or on
the Express Jobs app to pick up on our story.
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

(13:00):
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

(13:20):
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

(13:43):
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

(14:06):
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,

(14:27):
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

(14:47):
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

(15:09):
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

(15:30):
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,

(15:52):
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,

(16:13):
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,

(16:34):
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

(16:54):
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

(17:17):
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,

(17:39):
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

(18:01):
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

(18:23):
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

(18:45):
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

(19:06):
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

(19:27):
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

(19:49):
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.

(20:10):
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

(20:32):
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

(20:54):
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

(21:16):
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

(21:39):
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

(22:01):
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

(22:23):
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

(22:49):
discray