You want to eat meat but not factory-farmed meat. So you check out the farmer that raises the animals and find that the living conditions of the livestock are humane and ideal. You look into their feed and discover they are fed a diet with minimal environmental cost (such as grass and hay). You’re tempted but, being a conscientious meat consumer, you also want to ensure that no part of the animal goes to waste. You don’t eat enough meat to order a whole side of beef, so what can you do?
If you’re in Germany, the answer may be online. Two online butchering services, (geteiltes-fleisch.de and kaufnekuh.de) offer free-range pork and beef as single portions and boxes of mixed cuts in various sizes. “Geteiltes Fleisch” means “shared meat” and “Kauf ne Kuh” means “buy a cow.”
As you order the meat, you can see what percentage of the animal has already been sold. Once all parts have been bought, the animal is butchered and your meat is delivered. The company takes a conservative approach to using all cuts—for example, organs and offal, aren’t on offer. Instead, the focus is to sell all cuts of meat online. Other parts of the animal are sold by other venues. For examples, hides are sold to be made into leather and intestines sold for sausage casings.
At kaufnekuh.de, you can even choose the animal. There are different cows on offer at any time—you can check out the farm where the cattle were raised, and the age and sex of the animal. The animal is identified by its ear tag number, which is also marked on the packages of meat. The small abattoir is specified and is no more than a 1.5-hour drive from the farm and processes only 10-15 animals per week.
Crowd butchering may be a new solution to an old problem—what to do with the unfamiliar or unwanted cuts of meat.
- Janet Wallace