Specialty Shop Business Plan

Statistically over 90% of all small business start-ups fail; with lack of cash-flow and undercapitalization being the leading causes.  Therefore, most small shop owners can ill afford to make other people’s problems their problem; such as tying themselves to variable product quality whole carcass butchery from animals produced on local hobby farms.  Fresh retail meat cuts can be bought everywhere, including local one-stop shopping mega stores where competitive pricing is routinely practiced in order to keep sales volume high.  A smaller markup coupled with high volume will provide an adequate profit to stay in business.  Like it or not, convenient food shopping and easy final food prep have both been long-term trends for about 50 years now.  However, some of today’s food shoppers are willing to periodically make a separate stop for a few especial good food items that are also convenient to prepare.  Such consumers are looking for off-the-charts good items; that they can afford to buy.  A lot of people pay lip-service to supposed eco-friendly livestock production practices and “buying local,” but at the end of most days an affordable price, repeated good palatability characteristics and convenient final preparation routinely clinches the majority of food sales.

Even though a lot of modern food travels great distances to retail outlets, the economies of scale of industrial food production actually does make the most efficient usage of available production & distribution resources.  Lower prices charged; while still being able to turn a decent profit is partial proof of that claim.  Other, factors such as where raw agricultural commodities grow best (climate) and regions where production is welcomed by local inhabitants (think odors of feedlots, slaughter plants and rendering plants), also figures into how the mainstream food marketplace evolved to be this way.  Another benefit of big meat plants is that they do a high enough volume to be able to sort carcasses into fairly uniform quality and yield groupings.  So, in order to play the modern game well one could wisely buy a few different Graded wholesale boxed meat cuts that they are skilled at adding worthwhile value to.  Official USDA Quality grading and fairly uniform meat plant trim specifications offer a good degree of starting raw product uniformity, so one can confidently shop between suppliers for the best price.  Performing on-site artisan further processing of U.S. Inspected starting raw meat fits in well with “buy-local” marketing and the processing of items for on-site retail sales have a “retail exemption” from any further State or Federal Meat Inspection.  Local Boards of Health do have jurisdiction, but them folks seldom know very much about meat processing.  As an interesting matter of fact, wholesale cases of boxed beef may have originated from some nearby marginal land cow-calf farming operations; before feeder calves headed out West to the feedlots.  And, large-scale confinement hog  production might be located within a few hundred miles of your shop.  The local point-of-origin idea can get muddled quickly; especially in the case of multiple component end-items.   A focus on starting out with underutilized (less expensive) wholesale cuts can logically be promoted as supporting sustainable agriculture; where the entire meat animal carcass reaches its highest order human feeding potential.  Different carcass regions sell differently in different cities and neighborhoods, that’s another reason why boxed meat is here to stay.  I realize that at this point some readers might likely consider me to an apologist for “Big Meat,” but on several other occasions I have written opinions against big meat company practices that I disagree with.  I’m not beholden to anyone and speak what I feel to be the truth.  The good news here is that there’s no reasonable fear of driving up underutilized red meat cut prices if a lot of people followed this plan because the skill level, knowledge, will and financial backing required to work this business model are all beyond the capabilities of the overwhelming majority of a fairly small group of interested persons.  Pork butt prices will still go up a bit during outdoor cooking season; as will beef chuck-rolls during Fall & Winter roast season, but there’s no need to fret about the prices of those cuts rising cost-prohibitively high forever.

If you agree with my version of this small business reality and are still interested in opening a specialty meat shop, the first step is to find an optimal location where you can afford to either buy or rent.  One should try to eliminate all the reasons they  can for people not wanting to patronizing their little shop.  It’s a commonly accepted best practice to keep some grocery items (including meats) refrigerated as much as possibly, so specialty meat shops should ideally be located in close proximity to a popular supermarket or two.  That way people can conveniently drop by a specialty meat shop on their way home from doing their major weekly shopping.  It may even be more important to locate in a neighborhood where people have some discretionary income and the will to periodically switch up their diet with some better than ordinary foods.  This plan calls for the use of outdoor smoke-cookers, but the models recommended don’t generated much smoke.  Still, don’t locate in too snooty of a neighborhood.  Conversely, if you locate in an outdoor cooking allowing strip-mall the aroma of cooking meat will be a good advertisement tool.  Easy access from the road and ample parking are final good location recommendations that come to mind.

 

Required equipment and estimated cost:

A walk-in refrigerated box that’s big enough to both store boxed meat cases and grind in.  $6,000

A small mixer/grinder that’s equipped with a bone-chip collector.  $8,000

Stainless-steel table with cutting boards.  $1,000

3 compartment sink equipped with a sprayer.  $1,000

Sausage stuffer and a small stainless steel sausage table.  $3,000

Closed back – deli style meat case.  $5,000

A fairly large refrigerator.  $3,000

Freezer.  $2,500

Digital scales, some equipped with printers.  $1,600

Cash register.  $1,800

Check-out counter.  $500

Supply shelving. $400

Meat slicer.  $3,500

Meat cuber.  $1,500

Residential gas range.  $2,000

Restaurant double oven.  $8,000

Wolfer style smoke-cooker.  $250 each

Kettle grill.  $150 each

One small counter-top microwave.  $300

Meat lugs.  $200

Pullman loaf pans.  $170

13 by 17 1/2 inch rectangular roasting pans. $1502

Knives, thermometers and safety equipment.  $500

Garbage cans and misc. janitorial equipment.  $500

Store signage.  $3000

I’m certain to have missed somethings on the equipment list.  Therefore, the total start-up equipment cost will be North of  $54,000.  Depending upon the retail space you find, some facility renovations may also be needed.  Then comes retail space rent or purchase, advertising, permits, taxes, utilities, labor costs, insurances, bookkeeping  etc.  Proceeding on from this point of information discovery is not for the faint of wallet.  And, unless you generate good sales volume, even while also limit perishable product losses, the best you can hope to do is “buy yourself a job.”  When a low sales volume shop gets desperate enough to start leaving discolored fresh product in the display case, they are already in a downward spiral.

In order to have a fighting chance to survive, a new meat shop owner must have a good idea of which business mission will actually work (not just whatever is trending in talk & print), keep expenses to a minimum, offer a small selection of off-the-charts good products that are worth stopping in for, efficiently use up all starting raw product purchased and offer mainly microwave reheat-able convenience items.  If you insist upon being a “do-right” revolutionary, the chances of your business being a long term success will be even less than the <10% average of all start-up small businesses.

 

Pork products from boxed, minimally processed, bone-in, pork shoulder butts:

Smoke-cooked pulled-pork.  Promoted to be used mainly for Chipotle restaurant style home cooking or added to BBQ sauce to eat on buns.  Additionally, smoke-cooked pulled-pork can be used well in several different culinary applications.

Pre-cooked long, dinner diameter links of fresh Polish and Italian sausages.  Neither variety of sausage has much eye-appeal after cooking, but their aroma, taste, texture and convenience are all outstanding.  Excess fat gleaned from pulled-pork prep is used to get fresh sausage fat content up to where it needs to be (about 20% prior to cooking).

Whole pieces of buckboard bacon made from pork butt coppa/money muscle.  Purchased pieces of buckboard bacon will be sliced free of charge.

Fresh pork cube steaks made from the part of the cushion muscle that extends into pork butts.  Shop-worn pork cube steaks are to go into precooked fresh sausage production.

Goetta.  My hometown of Cincinnati, OH is lucky to have an existing market for Goetta because it formulates at about half water; therefore high quality Goetta can be very lucrative here.  Some of the smoke-cooked pulled pork is fine diced and used as the meat component in Goetta.

 

Beef items made from USDA Choice chuck rolls and Choice sirloin tips.

Pieces of corned beef and pastrami are made from the not so tender Denver steak muscle.  Pastrami will get smoked during the shredded beef smoke-cooking phases.  As with buckboard bacon, purchased pieces of corned beef and pastrami will be sliced for free.  Ends & pieces of these two products are good to make corned beef hash for breakfast.

Smoke-cooked shredded beef made from the true chuck roll.  With the exception of using it to make Goetta, smoked shredded beef is just as versatile as pulled-pork.

Beef cube steaks from flat looking splenius and rhomboideus  muscles.  Some chuck fat will be folded in during cubing.  Any slightly shop-worn beef cube steaks will be ground.

Some clean stew beef will be gleaned from sirloin tip side-muscles.  Any slightly shop-worn stew beef will be ground.

USDA Choice ground beef will be made by grinding/blending chuck roll fat trimmings and peeled knuckles (sirloin tips).  Since the shop is to sell only Choice beef, the ground beef, beef cube steaks and stew beef are all allowed to be labeled U.S. or USDA Choice.  Toward the end of each day, any unsold ground beef will be made into charcoal grilled, precooked patties then immediately frozen.

 

Product tally:  4 fresh items, 3 fully-coked cured items, 5 precooked uncured items and 1 precooked uncured frozen item.  Production of almost all of these products is covered in blog posts on this website.  The others will be posted in the near future.  On-site production of these 13 high quality meat items will keep intoxicating aromas in and around the specialty meats shop to help stir up business.

A countertop microwave oven will be in the customer area so they can heat up precooked samples.

Please share other ideas here; that might help others interested in going into business on their own.