I’ve been a meat cutter / butcher for over 40 years, with more than 20 years as a meat department manager. I have worked in 3 different supermarkets as well as 3 private butcher shops. I have worked with hanging meat, boxed meat, and prepacked meat.
I started in a supermarket meat department in 1982. We still received hanging beef, fore and hind quarters, whole lamb, and whole veal. Pork was already broken down and chickens came in ice packed. Boxed beef was starting to be popular and cost efficient. Luckily, my department manager, Dave, knew that hanging beef soon would be replaced by boxed beef. He made sure I knew how to break the hanging beef into primal cuts. We moved to boxed beef over the next few months.
Chickens were also changing from ice packed to prepacked. I spent most mornings cutting the ice packed chickens into specific parts to be packaged. Within a year we were predominately prepack on the chickens.
More to follow…..
.