Building a Skilled Workforce for Meat Lockers with Sierra Jepsen
“The future belongs to those who learn new skills and combine them in creative ways.” – Robert Greene.
Sierra Jepsen is an example of the quote above. She not only uses her skills in creative ways but teaches others to do the same with Butcher Solutions LLC – a traveling butcher school. Working in the meat industry was not Sierra’s lifelong dream. In fact, it’s something she was introduced to in college when she didn’t get into the beef production class she wanted and had to fill that credit with another course. That course was a meat science class. Jepsen said, “By day two I had just fallen in love with meat science. I knew that it was the perfect way to connect what the livestock producers were doing every single day with what the end consumer expected of those proteins.” This one course changed the entire trajectory of her career and allowed her to coach meat judging teams, gain experience with branded meat programs, attend grad school and eventually start her one-of-a-kind business.
Jepsen started her business just ten days after wrapping up graduate school and had been crafting her plan for some time. Before launching, she spent time connecting with small lockers and local beef producers to learn if this service would be valuable and solve a real-world problem. The common answer was – YES! In just eighteen months of being in business, Sierra has worked with butchers in Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana to do her part in building up a skilled workforce in the meat industry.
When it is time to host a school, Sierra packs up her knives and hits the road to train employees in different facilities and even ranchers who want to harvest their own livestock. It’s important to Sierra that there is no loss of production time to train new butchers. She will come to you, work with your team, on your carcasses, and in your facilities to find the process that is most efficient and most valuable to your customer base. “The whole premise behind the business is that we need more butcher education. But, we need to do it in a way that meets butchers where they are at whether that’s making the most of an older facility or a modern on-farm facility that was built from grant money after COVID,” said Jepsen. In addition to helping people make the most of their facilities, she also teaches her students how to get more creative with breaking down carcasses so they know when to use a knife versus a bandsaw to find innovative, valuable cuts such as the flatiron steak, Teres major, and sirloin tender. The benefit of this is two-fold. It offers the customer more grillable cuts which are easier to cook and are easier for ranchers to market in their direct-to-consumer sales.
Meat science education courses offered by Butcher Solutions vary in length and format depending on the experience level of employees. For those who have zero butchering experience, it might look like several days or weeks of training with several follow-up periods after that. For people who already have experience, it might be a training that only lasts a day or two. Like her original purpose for starting this business, she meets people where they are at.
If you are interested in learning more about Butcher Solutions LLC or connecting with Sierra, you can contact her on Instagram @butcher_solutions_llc or her website. https://butchersolutionsllc.com/
