BARDSTOWN, Ky. – Celebrating over 75 years in business this year, Boone’s Butcher Shop, a family-owned and operated retail meat store, slaughterhouse and USDA-inspected processing facility, started as a one-room operation in 1946.

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 Boone got started in the business almost by accident,” said Allison Boone Porteus, Luel’s granddaughter and vice president of Boone’s Butcher Shop in Bardstown. “He slaughtered a couple of hogs on his property for a local farmer, and sent them to the local locker plant in town; he’d stumbled on a niche waiting to be filled.”

After a while, she said, the farmers started asking Luel to process their meat, and his services were in high demand.

“The one-room operation soon became two rooms, and two rooms became three rooms, until he’d built a hodgepodge building with over a dozen additions,” she said.

Luel’s family was a great source for helping hands. His six daughters and son, Jerry, all worked in the business from the time they could push a broom. Jerry became a full-time butcher after graduating high school, and took over the business from his father in 1979.

In April 2004, most of Boone’s Butcher Shop was destroyed in a fire, and Jerry and his family decided to rebuild the business.

“Over a year after the blaze destroyed the building, a new, modern facility opened in the same location,” Porteus said. “Boone’s mascot, the bull on the top of the building, survived the fire and returned to his rightful place on the new building.”

Jerry and his wife, Donna, and their two children, Allison and Matthew, manage the daily operations of the business to this day.

Boone’s Butcher Shop still slaughters and processes for local livestock producers, as well as purchases cattle and hogs from producers for their retail and wholesale stores.

“We sell a wide variety of products in our retail store,” said Porteus, who is on the Kentucky Association of Meat Processors board of directors. “Our fresh meat selection includes beef, pork, chicken, and lamb; just about any cut. We also have a full deli with deli meats, cheeses, and deli salads.

She said livestock producers play an important role in the business: “We buy local livestock every week,” she said. “Buying local and harvesting on-site allows us to have an assortment of products that big box stores and chains don’t have.

“This allows us to capture customers for whom those types of products are regionally or culturally significant,” she added. “For example, people in this area love to make homemade pork cracklings, and we are the only place nearby who can sell pork skins.”

She said buying local livestock also allows them to sell beef and pork by the quarter or half – and trace the origin of the meat down to the farm.

“We also support 20-plus farmers who have established their own direct-to-consumer businesses, which gives more people – especially those in more rural areas – a chance to purchase locally-grown and harvested products,” she said.

“We purchase our hogs exclusively from a hog farm located about 10 miles from our shop,” she said. “It is another family-owned business that we’ve been working with for decades. We purchase beef from several producers, but always farmers we’ve worked with before.”

She said, “We have several farmers who we harvest and process beef for, who, in turn, become a source for us to purchase cattle. We don’t have any formal contracts; we operate the same way my grandfather did 75 years ago. We work with producers who we enjoy doing business with, who we trust, and who trust us.

“When livestock prices get low, we typically pay a premium for animals to lessen the blow to our producers,” she said. “That’s especially true for our hog producer; his business is just as important to our success as ours is to his.

“We do harvest and process animals for farmers regionally, and wholesale for some regional restaurants and specialty stores,” she added.

When asked how she would advise someone interested in starting a butcher shop in their community, she said, “There are several major barriers to entry – upfront capital costs are enormous, the regulatory environment is difficult if you don’t have a lot of experience (and sometimes, even if you do have a lot of experience), and there is no skilled workforce for the industry. Federal, state and local grants can help with the capital costs.

“If you are building a facility and intend to be USDA-inspected in the future, work with an expert to make sure your building complies with all the requirements,” she added. “I also advise people to work with an expert to establish their food safety systems.”

She said one of the biggest keys to their success is the diversity of their business.

“We sell products through our retail store, and to wholesale customers,” she said. “We process meat for both direct-to-consumer producers, and for those who sell animals by the half or quarter, or just for their personal use, and we process deer in the fall and winter.

“There have been years when we’ve had to rely more heavily on one of those business lines than others, and the size of our operation allows us to see issues arise and pivot when needed,” she added.

She said, “Right now, cattle prices are very high, so some processors are seeing their harvest schedules dry up, as producers can make more money taking their cattle to the stockyard rather than selling directly to consumers. Having other revenue streams to lean into helps us balance those types of changes.”