Speaker 1: Welcome back to On the Job. On today's episode, we're
Speaker 1: going back up to eastern Pennsylvania to check in with
Speaker 1: Scott carry who, at the height of the pandemic, left
Speaker 1: his cushy computer job to fulfill a passion for butchering.
Speaker 1: So let's get to it and hear how Scott Carey's
Speaker 1: gamble played out. When Scott Carey was first on On
Speaker 1: the Job, I wasn't yet the host. My good friend
Speaker 1: and rising radio legend Otis Gray was, And in their conversation,
Speaker 1: Scott told the Otis that after years of working in
Speaker 1: online marketing, who was feeling unfulfilled.
Speaker 2: I knew pretty early on, Like I was like, man,
Speaker 2: this is exactly what I didn't want to do. It
Speaker 2: didn't feel like me personally, Like I feel really antsy
Speaker 2: when I like sit down and I'm just sitting on
Speaker 2: a computer.
Speaker 1: And while Scott was making a nice living in that
Speaker 1: line of work, he craved chain, but he couldn't quite
Speaker 1: figure out what that chain should be.
Speaker 3: I was kind of more like like a entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: A entrepreneur, Yeah, you ever hear that that phrase?
Speaker 1: That's the first time I've ever heard that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like you want to be like a business owner.
Speaker 2: But you really don't.
Speaker 3: Have, like, you don't know what it takes to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you don't know what it takes.
Speaker 1: So Scott tried his hand at a bunch of different
Speaker 1: side hustles, all of which didn't pan out, but at
Speaker 1: least he had barbecuing, because at that time, Scott was
Speaker 1: really into cooking barbecue. He loved the entire process of it,
Speaker 1: the different cuts of meat, the dry rubs, getting the
Speaker 1: smoke just right, and how all that coalesced into flavors
Speaker 1: and textures that were borderline transcendent. But as deep as
Speaker 1: Scott's passion for barbecue ran, he realized that his knowledge
Speaker 1: about the actual meats he was smoking was severely lacking.
Speaker 2: I cooked a brisket and I had no idea where
Speaker 2: the on the cow where it came from. I got
Speaker 2: cooked the pork button. I thought it came from the
Speaker 2: pork's butt, and the actually he is the pork shoulder.
Speaker 1: So Scott reached out to a couple of butchers in
Speaker 1: the area to see if they'd show him the ropes,
Speaker 1: and one of them, a guy named Mike, took a
Speaker 1: chance on him and brought him under his wing, teaching
Speaker 1: Scott about the cuts of meat and the craft of
Speaker 1: butchery itself, and that's when things clicked for Scott. This
Speaker 1: is what he was meant to be doing. So in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Scott Carey and his mentor Mike became business
Speaker 1: partners when they opened Slate Belt Butchery, a wholesale meat
Speaker 1: processing facility in Salorsburg, Pennsylvania. And at first business was
Speaker 1: well steady.
Speaker 2: We had one customer, and then like the next month,
Speaker 2: we got two customers.
Speaker 1: In time, though, Scott signed on some bigger accounts and
Speaker 1: words started to spread about this young new butcher and
Speaker 1: his passion for the craft.
Speaker 3: It was during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: A lot of processing plants were shut down, a lot
Speaker 2: of people were, you know, trying to get processing and
Speaker 2: find a processor, and so we were just getting inundated
Speaker 2: with calls like, hey, can you help me?
Speaker 3: Can you help me? And we were taking people on
Speaker 3: as much as we could.
Speaker 1: Business grew so fast in that first year that Scott
Speaker 1: and Mike had to hire five employees and soon they
Speaker 1: were bumping up against the confines of the space they
Speaker 1: were renting.
Speaker 2: We were there a year and it was just very
Speaker 2: clear that if we were going to grow this business
Speaker 2: and become something substantial or offer anything to the farm community,
Speaker 2: like we were going to have to have like our
Speaker 2: own space.
Speaker 1: So Scott starts looking around for larger, more suitable properties.
Speaker 1: But as you can imagine, not everyone loves the idea
Speaker 1: of a whole animal butchery sprouting up next door to them.
Speaker 2: It's very difficult to just like build brand new, you know,
Speaker 2: with red tape and.
Speaker 3: Dealing with townships and getting an.
Speaker 2: Approval for a butcher shop. So the other idea was like, okay,
Speaker 2: we could find a butcher shop that actually has what
Speaker 2: we need. It might not be the most ideal set
Speaker 2: up and stuff like that, but at least it's already
Speaker 2: grandfathered in with the township.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, the butcher community is pretty tight, so Scott had
Speaker 1: a good lay of the land and before long he
Speaker 1: heard about a butcher over a new Tripoli Pa who
Speaker 1: was looking to retire.
Speaker 3: Him and his wife. They had a butcher shop for
Speaker 3: many years.
Speaker 2: It was in their family and no one in the
Speaker 2: family wanted to take it on, and he put the
Speaker 2: business up for sale. And when we saw it was like, man,
Speaker 2: this is like perfect, has the rail system and has
Speaker 2: the coolers.
Speaker 3: It was a previous butcher shop.
Speaker 1: And the added bonus of this shop was that it
Speaker 1: had a retail store front, whereas Scott's first shop only
Speaker 1: did wholesale.
Speaker 3: Our customers were farmers.
Speaker 2: We were processing for them and they would take it
Speaker 2: back and they would sell it at their farm market
Speaker 2: or on their store or on their website.
Speaker 1: So this new space offered Scott the ability to expand
Speaker 1: his business to retail, which would not only offer a
Speaker 1: whole new revenue stream, but really peaked his creative side.
Speaker 1: Now instead of just breaking down animals behind the scenes
Speaker 1: as he'd been doing for the last year, Scott could
Speaker 1: now start doing what he calls the more glamorous aspects
Speaker 1: of butchery, coming up with new products, making visually appealing displays,
Speaker 1: interacting with customers who shared his same passion for food.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was like a no brainer for us.
Speaker 2: Like and then we look for financing and we talked
Speaker 2: to some lenders and they liked our business plan, they
Speaker 2: liked what we were able to do in such a
Speaker 2: short period of time, and so we were able to
Speaker 2: buy that property.
Speaker 1: But while the facility Scott purchased was an existing butcher shop,
Speaker 1: it still needed months worth of serious renovations to make
Speaker 1: it fit their needs. And of course people can't hold
Speaker 1: their hunger for a few months, nor could Scott's clients
Speaker 1: stockpile their animals until he had the new place up
Speaker 1: and running.
Speaker 2: In my mind, I wanted to continue business as usual
Speaker 2: at the old location. I didn't want to have any interruptions.
Speaker 2: I thought that that would have been very jarring for
Speaker 2: a lot of our customers, a lot of our employees.
Speaker 2: So the idea was to continue operations at the original
Speaker 2: location in Saylorsburg, and then we were traveling to Neutropoli
Speaker 2: in the evening, and we were doing the remodel ourselves.
Speaker 1: The only problem was that new Tripoli, where the new
Speaker 1: shop would be, was a forty five minute drive from
Speaker 1: their current location, which, while not super far away, was
Speaker 1: just far enough to pose some problems. When we come
Speaker 1: back from the break, Scott carry moves the butcher shop
Speaker 1: down the road and hits a few speed bumps along
Speaker 1: the way.
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Speaker 1: We're back with Scott Carey, who, after a successful first
Speaker 1: year as a wholesale butcher in Salorsburg, Pennsylvania, took the
Speaker 1: leap of purchasing another facility in the town of New Tripoli.
Speaker 2: So that was very challenging just because it was very
Speaker 2: physically taxing to be working all day processing and then
Speaker 2: you know, working all night like doing construction and taking
Speaker 2: walls down and fixing things.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Well, those double days and forty five minute commutes were taxing,
Speaker 1: and Scott will be the first to say they were.
Speaker 1: He'll also confess that he loved them.
Speaker 2: And sometimes, like when you're butchering, like when you're just
Speaker 2: on the block all day long for eight hours a day,
Speaker 2: just cutting beef for cutting pork like cold, it's mononyous.
Speaker 3: It's like the same old stuff, day in day out.
Speaker 1: Scott Carey has never been one for the mundane. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was that aversion to doing the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over again that got him out of his previous
Speaker 1: career in marketing. But what he came to learn over
Speaker 1: the course of his time as a butcher is that
Speaker 1: what the job keeps you on your feet and moving around.
Speaker 1: Like most jobs, a lot of it is just doing
Speaker 1: the same tasks over and over again. During the renovations,
Speaker 1: though every day provided new challenges. One minute he might
Speaker 1: be choosing a new wall color and the next putting
Speaker 1: up a coat of spackle.
Speaker 2: It was nice to have that break in my day
Speaker 2: where I wasn't just butchering all day long and then
Speaker 2: that was it. It was like kind of like an exciting
Speaker 2: thing for me because it was just a different part
Speaker 2: of my brain than I was using.
Speaker 1: Yet as much as Scott enjoyed the excitement and variety
Speaker 1: that comes with turning and existing building into the shop
Speaker 1: of his dreams, he always kept in mind that despite
Speaker 1: the fun he was having with renovations, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, he was a butcher and it was
Speaker 1: butchering that paid the bills.
Speaker 2: I think as an entrepreneur, it's very easy to get
Speaker 2: like this shiny ball syndrome where like you see something
Speaker 2: and it's just like, oh, that's like cool, Like I
Speaker 2: could have basically dropped everything at the butcher shop and
Speaker 2: just focused all my time just renovating this new location.
Speaker 2: But like that would have been doing a disservice to
Speaker 2: the business. Number one, the culture would suffer, the employees
Speaker 2: would suffer.
Speaker 3: So ultimately I felt.
Speaker 2: Like my responsibility was keeping my current business operating with
Speaker 2: no hiccups.
Speaker 1: And even if Scott enjoyed bouncing back and forth between
Speaker 1: the two shops, it's never wise to fight a war
Speaker 1: on two fronts. So the sooner he could get the
Speaker 1: new shop up and running, the better, and fortunately he
Speaker 1: knew how to kick things in overdrive.
Speaker 2: There's no breaks in the butcher shops sometimes because we're
Speaker 2: processing under inspection, which we can only process so many
Speaker 2: hours during the day, so there's this sense of urgency.
Speaker 2: We make a plan to break three beef down or
Speaker 2: four beef down in a day, like we gotta get
Speaker 2: that done by two thirty. So yeah, there was definitely
Speaker 2: like a sense of urgency to get that shop open.
Speaker 1: Then one day, after months of tireless work, Scott looked
Speaker 1: around and realized that after all that hard work and hustling,
Speaker 1: they were done.
Speaker 2: It was surprising to me because it wasn't like I
Speaker 2: was looking at like an Excel sheet and I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: I you know, five more things, four more things, three
Speaker 2: more things. It was just like one day, just like
Speaker 2: I had this realization was like, oh man, we did
Speaker 2: what we set out to do. I just remember like
Speaker 2: looking up and seeing like everything that we kind of accomplished,
Speaker 2: and it was just like, man, we're opening in like
Speaker 2: two weeks. Like everything's pretty much taken care of.
Speaker 1: And with the new shop ready to go, Scott did
Speaker 1: his best to move everything that was working at the
Speaker 1: old shop over to the new operation, including his employees,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately the forty five minute commute took its toll.
Speaker 2: The one left within a month. The drive just became
Speaker 2: too much for her. I understood that that was a
Speaker 2: conversation we had. I knew she was leaving. And then
Speaker 2: I had my one of my main butchers. He stayed
Speaker 2: with us for about a year and a half. He
Speaker 2: was doing that drive, and it just became pretty like
Speaker 2: apparent after a year that that drive was getting to him,
Speaker 2: you know, working the whole day like butchering.
Speaker 3: It just physically, I think wore him down.
Speaker 1: Despite the loss of two very good employees, Scott says,
Speaker 1: moving his whole operation to the new facility went surprisingly smooth.
Speaker 3: Our customers didn't notice much.
Speaker 2: The culture we created, the processes we created, it was
Speaker 2: all the same.
Speaker 3: It was just a different room.
Speaker 1: If Scott has any regrets about moving his business, it's
Speaker 1: only that he didn't do it sooner the.
Speaker 3: Things that in my mind that were going to be
Speaker 3: a big issue. I thought like the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Was gonna collapse on us because we were moving to
Speaker 2: different location. And once we actually did it, and when
Speaker 2: we pulled the bandit off, I was like, actually, that
Speaker 2: wasn't that bad.
Speaker 1: It's been two years since Scott closed down the Salorsburg
Speaker 1: facility and focused on the new Tripoli store, and already
Speaker 1: he's seeing that gamble pay.
Speaker 2: Off, seeing the numbers come in. I'm seeing the employees
Speaker 2: that are staying. I'm seeing the employees were hiring, and
Speaker 2: I'm creating jobs and like owning a bit small business
Speaker 2: in a small community, like I'm super proud of that.
Speaker 1: Not only does his business still serve the farmers in
Speaker 1: the community, Scott is getting to exercise his creativity with
Speaker 1: the new retail side of the business.
Speaker 2: You can't just like make the same twenty products all
Speaker 2: the time, you got to expand and do new things
Speaker 2: to get your customers to keep coming back. Every once
Speaker 2: in a while, we'll like come up with a new product,
Speaker 2: or we'll be working on a new product or a
Speaker 2: new recipe or something like that, and like I get
Speaker 2: really excited doing that.
Speaker 1: Still, Scott admits that there are tasks and even days
Speaker 1: of being a butcher that aren't as exciting.
Speaker 2: Say about twenty percent of the jobs in a butcher
Speaker 2: shop instagrammable, looking clean behind a counter selling meat that
Speaker 2: has like the green and the kale.
Speaker 3: And it looks beautiful.
Speaker 2: But there's a whole world, the whole agricultural world, that
Speaker 2: just focuses on getting animals ready to be put in
Speaker 2: a case like that.
Speaker 1: The other eighty percent of the job, Scott says, the
Speaker 1: stuff the customers typically don't see is far from glamorous.
Speaker 1: It's taking out the trash and sharpening knives. It's sanitizing surfaces,
Speaker 1: fulfilling work orders and dealing with equipment repairs. But five
Speaker 1: years in, Scott knows that's just what it means to
Speaker 1: be a butcher, and he wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's wild because like I took a pay
Speaker 2: cut to do this. I think the first like three
Speaker 2: months I never even paid myself. I just lived off
Speaker 2: savings and then like I'm still like not where I
Speaker 2: used to be, but like that's okay.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes we think of work as a means to acquiring money,
Speaker 1: something we do to pay the bills and support the
Speaker 1: life we want to live, and there's nothing wrong with that. Frankly,
Speaker 1: that's probably the majority of the workforce. But sometimes the
Speaker 1: lucky ones among us find work that offers them more
Speaker 1: than an income.
Speaker 2: I never like felt like super excited to talk about
Speaker 2: like what I did in the past. Yeah, I worked
Speaker 2: for some good companies like Crayola and like Rhadale and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. But like it became like very apparent
Speaker 2: immediately after I graduated college and I got a job
Speaker 2: and I was in a cubicle that I was just like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is not what I think I'm going to do
Speaker 2: for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: So while it might have taken Scott carry a few
Speaker 1: tries and years of sitting in a cubicle before finding
Speaker 1: his life's calling, what matters is he.
Speaker 2: Got there, and I'm we're proud that I'm like carrying
Speaker 2: on this trade and this craft because there's not many
Speaker 2: of us left, and the ones that are left, they're
Speaker 2: getting up there in age. I don't know who they're
Speaker 2: passing it on to. And I have like a tremendous
Speaker 2: amount of pride in that because it's it's a tough
Speaker 2: job and I'm glad to
Speaker 1: Do it for On the job, I'm Afrey Thompson.