Secrets of meat curing and sausage making / how to cure hams, shoulders, bacon, corned beef, etc., and how to make all kinds of sausage, etc. to comply with the pure food laws

by B. Heller & Co.

STARTING A BUTCHER BUSINESS

Query.—M. E. A. writes: Will you please forward me another copy of your desirable book, “How to Cure Meat and Make Sausage”? And if it is not too much trouble, I would like to have you advise how it is best to start in the butcher and pork packing business in a small way. I have about $700 capital and wish to ask how is the best way to fit up a retail store without too much expense and yet to have it look good, and also to fit up a sausage kitchen and have everything that a man needs to run the business successfully. I may as well state that I have had lots of experience, but after reading your book and the advice that it gives I am sure that even experienced men can learn a lot by reading it.

Ans.—With such a limited amount of capital, it would be advisable to buy second-handed fixtures. These can always be obtained much cheaper than new ones, and you can get good fixtures which will answer the purpose, but they must be neat, clean and in good repair. If you intend to do your own butchering, our advice is that you make arrangements with some butcher who has a slaughter house, and where you can do your butchering, and pay him a certain amount for each animal slaughtered. A very important point that we advise you to follow is to sell everything for cash only, as your capital is not sufficient to give credit to anyone. Were you to give credit and make a lot of book accounts, you would soon run out of money and would not be able to buy large stock and supplies for your market. We also advise that you induce your customers to take their meat home with them, and thus relieve yourself of the necessity of keeping a horse and wagon for delivery purposes. This would save quite an outlay in capital, and a great deal of expense and time. You can then announce with a small advertisement in the daily paper that you sell for cash only, and that you can afford to be more liberal with your customers than you could if you carried accounts, and because you do not incur the expense of delivery. Such an advertisement with placards in your store, no doubt, would result favorably. You must remember at all times that your capital is limited and that you must “trim your sails” accordingly. It is the over-reaching the limits of the possibilities of capital that make the most failures among tradesmen. We would not advise you to advertise meat at a cut price because you sell for cash; people do not want stuff that is cheap, for if you sell stuff at a low price, they imagine there is something wrong with it. Charge the same price that all the other butchers do, and in that way, keep their friendship. If a woman gets something that she doesn’t like and brings it back, tell her that you are very glad she brought it back, if it did not suit her, because you never want any of your customers to keep anything that does not please them.

A sausage room can be rigged up very cheap; all you need to start with is a small Enterprise grinder, so that you can grind up your trimmings and work them into sausage, and by working the meat trimmings up into the different formulas that we give in our book, “Secrets of Meat Curing and Sausage Making,” you will not have any loss, as all of your trimmings can be worked up to good advantage. You also should make a great display of your own cured corned beef and turn out fine corned beef, so that when your customers buy it, they are well pleased. The main thing in the success of running a retail market is that the butcher understands how to buy his live stock so that he gets the right quality of beef and gets it at the right price. If you have good meats to sell you will have no trouble in selling them, but if you have poor goods to sell, you may sell them to a customer once or twice, but the third time the customer will not come near you. The same thing holds good with you; if you were buying some of your supplies from the jobber and the jobber did not send you good goods, you may try him once more and if he again sends you poor goods, the third time you certainly will not buy from him, but you will go to some other jobber who will give you the best goods for your money. Your customers are just as smart and as sensitive as you are, and want the same kind of treatment that you like, so if you will always treat your customers as you would like to be treated yourself if you were buying meat at a market, you are bound to meet with success.