In a noisy, refrigerated room, Chase Meeks checked a customer’s order before breaking down a large piece of beef. He’s the lead meat-processor and manager of a family-owned butcher shop near Shade in southeast Ohio, appropriately named The Local Butcher.
In Ohio, 17,000 family farms raise beef cattle. But butcher shops are much smaller in number: Across the state there are only around 300 meat processing businesses. Neither Athens nor Meigs county had a butcher until Chase’s family moved their business here from Gallipolis in 2021.
Chase pointed to each of the cuts he made off the massive hunk of beef, noting the customer’s name — they are regular clients. He knows these cows and he knows their farmers…