Behold, the latest innovation in traveling tech: rifle-slinging, apron-wearing mobile butchers for hire.
You can think of them as the meat industry’s answer to mobile kitchens.
Slaughterhouses filled with workers are breeding grounds for COVID-19, so what’s a farmer to do? Trade groups like the North American Meat Institute think they should try a slice of slaughter-on-the-go.
Mobile butchers aren’t exactly hitmen
But they do show up to kill your cattle, then haul the carcass off to their shops. They cut up the animal and deliver the pieces back to your doorstep.
Their work is still bloody rare: Just 16 USDA-approved mobile slaughter units are roving the country today. But that’s almost twice as many as 3 years ago.
Why aren’t there more? Some advocates and regulators have beef with the lack of inspection — they say it’s risky to have people cuttin’ carcasses without oversight.
Others say that’s a load of bull
Some advocates think mobile butchery is more humane than the industrialized alternative.
But to manage the COVID-19 crisis, there’s another solution that is much more clean-cut than mobilizing an army of butchers: Invest in small, local slaughterhouses.
