On-Farm Butchers: In the Spotlight
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Limited meat processing capacity has challenged the Ontario beef industry in recent years. Farmers with livestock can also run into trouble when an injury prevents their animals from being transported to meat processing facilities. We spoke with two on-farm butchers about how they are helping the livestock industry address these concerns.
Spotlight #1:
Mobile butchery with a mission.
‘It’s rewarding helping people & providing a service that’s needed.’
By Emily Mckinlay
Karson Hennick provides mobile butchering services across southern Ontario through his business, Field to Fork Butchering, in Lambton County near Sarnia. He believes that mobile butchers can help farmers gain value out of animals that would typically be denied in abattoirs.
“I worked in abattoirs and butcher shops for around three years and a lot of animals would be denied due to rules about shipping unfit animals,” says Karson, who has now been in the butchering industry for eight years.
“Just because they couldn’t bear weight on all four legs doesn’t mean they were garbage animals meant for deadstock. The rules and regulations around animals that couldn’t be butchered was what got us into this business.”
He points to how the reduced stress of on-farm slaughter improves meat quality. “It’s a lot more humane to do an on-farm slaughter than loading livestock onto a trailer and shipping them to an abattoir,” he explains.
“When animals are frightened, it creates lactic acid, and that causes tough meat. When they are killed in their own environment, no lactic acid is released, and you didn’t force the animal to do anything it didn’t want to do. You get tender meat right off the bat.”
After working at the abattoirs and butcher shops, Karson started his business just before the COVID-19 pandemic. He initially focused on lambs due to their small size, but soon built an expanded facility. The business offers services for all livestock, with the exception of poultry, in addition to processing wild game like bears, moose, and deer.
Regulations are in place to protect both animals and meat consumers.
“Some people try to cheat the industry and make a dollar when they shouldn’t. All it takes is one bad apple, but now we have rules and regulations that make it more difficult for everyone else,” says Karson.
“At the end of the day, the food industry is the easiest way to kill someone. People put food in their mouth with no hesitation, and it either tastes good and they feel good, or they feel lousy after.”
He explains that learning these laws to provide butchering services was one of the first steps in creating his business.
“The first process was learning the rules and regulations of performing on-farm slaughters, as well as the processing of wild game, and understanding what you’re allowed and not allowed to do,” says Karson.
“One of the biggest hurdles was getting my name out there and coming up with funds to build equipment and a facility that meets regulations and can be sanitized. The facilities need to be able to stay refrigerated, and it needs to be easy to clean everything up and sanitize it. I also need equipment to euthanize animals humanely. It takes a skill set and facilities.”
During his time in the industry, Karson has observed that the number of Ontario butcher shops has decreased. Labour shortages and industry competitiveness can make it difficult for small businesses to stay open.
“At one point, there were thousands of butcher shops in Ontario, and now we’ve dwindled down to the hundreds,” he states.
“People are forced to travel two to three hours to get animals butchered at an abattoir, and wait times are longer because of labour shortages.”
Karson has found that the labour shortage has even affected his own business.
“Another challenge is finding employees. It’s difficult to find people who want to work in a job where they get their hands dirty, let alone in a job in which an animal has to die to have meat,” says Karson.
“We’ve been looking for a butcher trainee for the last two years, since the business took off, but it’s hard to find anyone. We advertised all over.”
Mobile butchers can play a role in addressing an industry gap for farmers who were getting animals prepared for consumption in their own households, saving the stress of shipping and the hassle of finding space at abattoirs.
Many people never consider butchery as a potential career path.
“I was fortunate enough that when I was 13 years old, I got a dishwashing job for a small restaurant owner,” Karson shares about how he was introduced to the work.
“He was more in touch with his roots than most people are. He would go twice a year to get a lamb, and we would process it out to cuts, and that’s what really got me interested in where meat comes from.”
Over the next 10 years, Karson would like to see Field to Fork Butchering continue to grow. A second trailer would allow him to attend to more animals and help better serve the farming community.
“Once the trailer is on-farm, I can’t touch another job until that job is over,” he explains.
He would also like to bring his son and another trainee into the business.
“I have one son who likes to help in deer season, and once he gets a bit older, I’d like to see him out helping on farms a bit more. We also have a baby boy on the way, and once he’s older and trained, I’d like to get him in the trailer and working with me, too.”
Karson is passionate about the services he brings to farmers and plans to continue to share this passion.
“One of my biggest enjoyments in this job is meeting all the farmers and helping them out and giving them an alternative option. It’s really rewarding helping people and providing a service that’s truly needed.
“There is a lot of satisfaction from being told you did a good job and the farmer calling you back. There’s also satisfaction in giving back value to an animal that you’ve been told is worth zero dollars now.” BF
Spotlight #2:
Low-Stress, High Impact
Inside Cole The Butcher’s Mobile Business
By Emily Mckinlay
Nicholas Armstrong, who also goes by ‘Cole the Butcher’ on social media, is passionate about education and animal comfort in his mobile butchering business.
Cole is based out of Aylmer and offers processing for wild game and on-farm slaughter and processing of livestock, except for poultry and rabbits. A large portion of his business is emergency slaughter for injured animals.
“I try to offer as much on-farm service as possible for the animals and for the farmers,” says Cole.
“It’s just a better option. It’s low-stress and there’s no need to truck the animal. It’s better to be on the farm.”
Cole’s experience with butchery started at a grocery store meat department, which opened his eyes to new career opportunities.
“I had a lot of life issues in my late teens and early 20s, like my health, and I needed a change,” he explains.
“I started working at a grocery store meat department. I had no background in butchery, so it was a new thing for me. At the grocery meat department, we were not butchers or meat cutters, but I got to learn basic cuts and the basics of butchery.
“After that, I moved to a butcher shop closer to my family and learned how to break down beef and pigs, which was very different.”
When he saw the need for someone to process deer during hunting season, Cole took his chance to create his own business, which eventually evolved to include livestock.
“I saw a need for someone to cut deer around our area and I was still working at the butcher shop at the time. I also saw there was a need for an on-farm butcher,” says Cole.
“No one taught me how to kill for this job. I had to start small with wild game and have grown from five deer a year to around 150 deer a year. I have a lot of dates booked for beef, pigs, and other livestock.
“I left the butcher shop after business started to pick up. Things were getting too busy. I became Cole the Butcher.”
Cole explains that he is proud to offer low-stress services for animals and help farmers save meat that could be lost due to animal injury. He says it also maintains better meat quality by not trucking and further stressing the animal.
While his passion for his job outweighs the challenges, Cole says that regulations and capacity can make it difficult to help as many farmers as he would like.
“As I started out, the main challenge was temperature and trying to keep carcasses cold. I didn’t have a refrigerator trailer at that time,” says Cole.
“It’s also challenging to try to travel and reach the animal at an appropriate time. That also goes with temperature. I have only one trailer, and if an animal goes down or if there’s more than one, it’s difficult to get to all those animals, and it is quite upsetting to tell people no.”
As an on-farm butcher, Cole cannot move meat or carcasses off the farm. In warmer weather, when keeping carcasses cool is critical, this means he may only get to one animal in a day.
“This time of year is usually my busy season. I also thought that summer wouldn’t be as busy, but I was wrong. And with the rules in Ontario regarding meat staying on-farm, I can only do one animal at a time,” explains Cole, stating that as his business grows over the next few years, he would like to have a second refrigerated trailer.
“I don’t plan on hiring employees for the business. I would like to have more than one trailer, maybe when the time comes, but I can only do so much at one time.”
When thinking about the challenges he’s encountered in his work, Cole would also like to see better tools used by farmers to help get injured animals up. This is one reason why education is an important aspect of his business.
He enjoys including this educational aspect on his Facebook page, ‘Cole the Butcher,’ and appreciates time to chat with farmers about the benefits of on-farm slaughter and butchering for livestock. He recently also taught a course about how to butcher a pig.
“I love the education part of my job. I believe everyone should be able to do this in case something happens in life. It’s a skill that everyone should learn,” says Cole.
He would also like to dispel the misconception that butchers are grouchy.
“I like to be social and educate my clients, and I ask them if they want to watch the slaughter so they can someday learn to do it themselves.
“It’s all about being low-stress. The only thing needed by the farmer is a loader and a hose. I always tell people you can feed the animals and make them as comfortable as possible. It’s over in an instant, and I think it’s the most humane way of slaughtering an animal.”
He also shares his passion for education with his son and daughter, who he hopes will choose to work with him in his business in future.
“My kids are young – two and four – and they are very educated. They have seen my videos and know what Daddy does,” says Cole.
“In my spare time, my kids and my family are my everything. My goal in life is that my son or daughter would come work with me someday.”
Mobile butchering certainly brought Cole a renewed sense of purpose.
“Butchery as a whole has changed my life. I never thought I’d be doing this, and it’s changed my life for the better.” BF