Skip to content

Trotters Butcher Shop and Charcuterie about more than the meat

Local shop focuses on a nose-to-tail concept with an emphasis on educating customers as part of the process
20160805 trotters 1 tb
The crew at Trotters Butcher Shop and Charcuterie: Ches Zabarowski, from left, owner Brett MacDonald and Brian Manley outside the shop on Cork Street. Photo by Troy Bridgeman for GuelphToday

Educating customers about the sources, variety and quality of his product line is almost as important to Guelph butcher Brett MacDonald as selling it to them.

“I enjoy talking directly with the customer and sort of teaching them about what they really can eat — the lesser cuts and the pieces most people don’t know about,” said MacDonald. “A good term to explain that is a nose-to-tail idea. We are using the entire animal and pushing that philosophy.”

MacDonald opened Trotters Butcher Shop and Charcuterie (with Phil Baranski and Mike Baranski) on Cork Street with the goal of establishing a traditional-style butcher shop and reconnecting his customers with the sources of their food.

“I wanted to get back to letting everyone know where it is coming from, what it has eaten, how it is supporting the community and the farmers,” he said. “We do our own dry aging of beef. We do curing. We do smoking. We do raw. Every single thing in this place is made here. We don’t buy anything processed, ever.”

They provide both retail and wholesale services for a growing list of customers in Guelph and beyond.

“We are supplying many of the restaurants in town here,” said MacDonald. “Outside of Guelph we are supplying through distribution companies that take our product to different cities.”

While many of the products they sell, such as the German, Spanish, Italian, South African and Korean sausages, are inspired by international recipes, everything is made with ingredients from Ontario.

The focus on local and the nose-to-tail philosophy helps his customers reduce food and packaging waste.

“It means a lot to people, I feel, to not have every single piece of meat they buy come with 10 pounds of packaging,” he said.

MacDonald’s passion for food goes way back. He was born in Mississauga and moved to Milton with his parents, brother and two sisters when he was young.

“I was back and forth between Milton and Guelph for most of my life,” he said.

After graduating from chef school at George Brown College he began perfecting his culinary skills in the kitchens of Langdon Hall in Cambridge, the Aberfoyle Mill in Puslinch and Baker Street Station in Guelph.

It was during his time as head chef at Baker Street Station that his concept for Trotters began to evolve.

“I ended up doing a whole pile of my own dry cure because we started something there called the chop block,” he said. “I built a room in the office there to hang salami. So, the passion kind of stemmed from there really.”

He and silent partners, Phil and Mike Baranski, opened Trotters Butcher Shop in February 2015 not to compete with other independent butcher shops in the city but to build on the tradition and provide people with another alternative to the large grocery chains.

“There are definitely guys around that are doing a similar thing but I don’t think there is enough of it,” said MacDonald. “There should be more of these kinds of places because I really feel we are losing that connection big time. But it is an uphill battle, that’s for sure.”


Comments

Verified reader

If you would like to apply to become a verified commenter, please fill out this form.




Troy Bridgeman

About the Author: Troy Bridgeman

Troy Bridgeman is a multi-media journalist that has lived and worked in the Guelph community his whole life. He has covered news and events in the city for more than two decades.
Read more