“Our butcher program is unique in the industry and offers our clients many benefits…with butchery, we supply our own needs!”

With a history that can be traced back at least to 1272, butchery is an ancient trade offering multi-level perks to food service programs that have only recently come into full light.

“Our butcher program is unique in the industry and offers our clients many benefits including the freshest meats and fish,” says Epicurean Group Corporate Chef, Phil Wright. “But recently we discovered something else. Covid created real issues with the supply chain as everyone knows, and certain meat cuts have seen serious shortages with responding price hikes. But we aren’t sweating a lot about it in the Epicurean Group kitchens. With butchery, we supply our own needs!

Instead of paying premiums for pre-cut, factory-processed meat, Epicurean Group uses whole chickens and fish, dramatically increasing food budgets with cost savings, while heightening flavor in a way only homemade can. Our in-house ground beef and handmade pork sausage delights in freshness while saving money too. Ten pounds of premade sausage can reach $50, but Epicurean Group kitchens make it fresh for approximately $1.18 a pound, serving up superior taste while saving our clients more than $3 per pound. Grinding grass-fed chuck in-house (and baking our own hamburger buns, another Epicurean Group specialty) means food programs can offer a highly popular perk – hamburgers – not usually offered on All-You-Can-Eat food programs due to high cost. Money saved goes back into your food program, compounding benefits to our clients.

Savings per pound (chicken)

Meat and fish scraps left over are never thrown away but rather transformed into liquid gold, rich stocks that are a key ingredient of Epicurean Group’s umami-filled soups and braises. Homemade stock is the pride of many a chef, a step many commercial kitchens unfortunately replace with industrial concentrated pastes. The 200 chickens one Epicurean Group kitchen might use per week yield around 100 gallons of delicious stock, enough to share with other locations.

Breakfast sausages (house-smoked for 8 hours out back), are another item available from the butchery menu. Additionally, we cure our own salmon lox, the crowning feature atop Epicurean Group homemade bagels.

When it comes to fish, Monterey Aquarium and Seafood Watch Guidelines are strictly followed, helping consumers and businesses like ours make choices for a healthy ocean.

“See the clear eyes on this guy,” Chef Phil says beaming. “That means this fish is uber-fresh. When you get in tight with the fishmongers as we do at Epicurean Group, you get fish that was swimming two days ago.”