How high-tech butchers, niche operations differ (SFGate)

T&E Meats was recently featured in the San Francisco Chronicle's SF Gate.

Here's an excerpt:

Cloud was lured to this underappreciated link in the local food chain by Joel Salatin, the hyperarticulate farmer made famous by UC Berkeley's Michael Pollan and the film "Food, Inc." Salatin was worried about the Harrisonburg plant, T&E Meats, which was among the last that could process his tiny herds.

Small farms that want to brand their meats the way Napa vintners brand wines rely on small, federally inspected slaughterhouses to do it. T&E owners Tommy and Erma May would soon retire. Two years ago, Salatin persuaded Cloud, 52, a self-described foodie and dedicated carnivore, to plunge his retirement savings into the venture.

Read more by clicking here.

The Fight to Save Small-Scale Slaughterhouses (The Atlantic)

T&E Meats co-owner Joe Cloud is a regular blogger at The Atlantic.

His latest post is titled, "The Fight to Save Small-Scale Slaughterhouses".

An excerpt:

Picture an hourglass and you'll understand the sustainable meat crisis: there are plenty of willing consumers out there, and there are more and more farmers looking to "meat" that consumer demand (sorry—couldn't help myself!), but the real bottleneck is processing capacity. Small, community-based meat processing plants have become an endangered species, done in by an ocean of super-cheap industrial meat and the challenge of meeting the Byzantine demands of USDA regulations without a Ph.D. in microbiology.

Read the entire article online at The Atlantic. Subscribe to Joe's future posts by clicking here.

Local slaughterhouses come back to life (Washington Post)

From The Washington Post, March 17, 2010

Joe Cloud, photographed by Stephanie Gross, courtesy of The Washington Post

So began the hard work of turning the animals into meat. The process is usually hidden from view, so that all consumers see is a steak or chop in a shrink-wrapped package. But at True & Essential Meats, one of about a dozen small slaughterhouses in the state that work with local farms, even school classes have visited the kill floor.

Co-owner and manager Joe Cloud, a 52-year-old former landscape architect from Seattle who bought the plant in mid-2008, welcomes visitors so they can see what's at stake, for the eater and the eaten. "It is a slaughterhouse, but I'm not going to shrink from showing who we are and what we do," Cloud said. "The industry has walled it off and is in a defensive crouch. I want to be different."

Continue reading here.

Where's the Beef?

 Illustration by Bambi Edlund, courtesy Edible Blue Ridge

Of course, visit a neighborhood butcher or get it straight from the farm, and you can tap into the knowledge of these seasoned experts. In the meantime, we're providing a map of the eight “primal cuts” (the first cuts made when a butcher breaks down a steer), along with some fantastic recipes and tips from local butchers. So, you ask, where's the beef? Hopefully, it's in your kitchen.

T&E Meats very own Joe Cloud contributed three recipes.

Read the article at Edible Blue Ridge, Winter 2010

Behind-the-Scenes with George Bowers Grocery

One of our local retail locations, George Bowers Grocery in Staunton, featured a photo spread of T&E Meats in July 2008.

If you are unable to buy T&E Meat directly from our retail shop, you can still source our products at select area locations such as farmers markets, restaurants, and specialty grocers like George Bowers.