Apprentice Butcher

A whole forequarter of beef arrives through the back door of the shop at five in the morning. By midday it has to be a counter full of retail cuts. The Certificate Three in Meat Processing for retail butchery is forty four units. The apprenticeship runs three years. Most of the training happens on the job in a retail butcher shop or supermarket meat room, with specialised on campus blocks at TAFE. The course covers primary butchery from carcass to primal, secondary from primal to retail cut, boning, sausage making, smallgoods and hygiene. The day is hands and knives. Breaking down a forequarter on the band saw, separating chuck, rib, brisket and shin. Boning out a cube roll and slicing scotch fillet steaks. Stuffing seasoned pork mince through a sausage horn into natural hog casings, twisting links every eighty millimetres.