Bringing back the local butcher shop
This is the first of many more local business profiles. The idea behind this column is to introduce local businesses and start-ups to the campus and the city of Guelph. Supporting local businesses is something Guelph does very well – we, as a community, continue to strive for this.
Each month, we will focus on one local business, and talk to the owners and learn more about what brought them to where they are now. By doing this, we hope to ignite passion in the students of the University of Guelph who have their own entrepreneurial aspirations. This week, we spoke to Brett MacDonald about Trotter’s Butcher Shop and Charcuterie.
MacDonald opened his Trotter’s Butcher Shop and Charcuterie on Feb. 7, 2015. The former chef has been working in the food industry since he was 15-years-old, and he has big plans for the City of Guelph.
“Trotters will bring back the old traditional feeling of a small local butcher,” explained MacDonald. “We are only using products and animals raised as close to Guelph as possible.”
To MacDonald, the relationship between the butcher and his customers is integral.
“I feel a trusting relationship between the butcher shop and its customers,” MacDonald continued, “and the ability to connect people to their food and where it comes from is very important.”
Over the course of his long career, MacDonald worked in many restaurants around the City of Guelph. However, his most cherished memories are of his times working at Langdon Hall.
“I spent four years working under the chef [of Langdon Hall] who helped me develop a passion for using the whole animal,” said MacDonald. “I grew my career as a chef for many years running a few kitchens around Guelph, practicing my salumi techniques.”
Salumi are cold cuts derived predominately from pork. When MacDonald was featured on You Gotta Eat Here, he realized that it was time to “bow out of the kitchen” and begin his journey to open his own salumi charcuterie and butchery.
“We are set apart from most butcher shops in the tri-city area due to our salumi program,” said MacDonald. “We are producing all of our own dry cured meats and salami. We have built a large drying chamber that is visible from the retail area through a window.”
“We also will be offering a large selection of products from our indoor smokehouse, as well as all the fresh cuts of meat in our retail display case,” MacDonald continued. “Customers will also have the chance to try our product in local restaurants, as we will be selling wholesale throughout the tri-cities [of Guelph, Waterloo, and Kitchener].”
The name “Trotters” is derived from a pig’s trotter – another name for a pig’s foot. MacDonald hopes that his customers will connect the animal’s name to the Earth.
“It is my abstract way of thinking ‘farm to fork’ [and] ‘Earth to table’ kinda thing,” concluded MacDonald. “Trotters butcher shop is based on a ‘nose to tail’ way of thinking, and using the whole animal is very important to us.”
Stay tuned for future additions of this column to learn more about small and innovative businesses in Guelph.