Undertaking an apprenticeship in butchery can be a hugely rewarding experience. But it’s also undeniably tough, especially if you’re not fully prepared for it. So, you may be wondering, what sort of skills will I be learning? What sort of specific butchers equipment will I be using? Should I know anything beforehand?

So to help you out, here we’ve detailed some of the skills that’ll be absolutely essential in making your butchery pursuits a success. We’ll begin with a few tips on how to use your knife. Remember the golden rule - a sharp knife is your friend, a blunt knife will hurt you!

Know your knives

Firstly, always use the knife that’s specifically designed for the job at hand. Here at Butchers Equipment Warehouse, we supply a wide range of different knives perfectly suited to a variety of different jobs and tasks, including brands like F.Dick, SWIBO and Dexter Russell. Don’t be tempted to just use the nearest one to hand - that’s how they get blunted or broken, and you also put yourself at risk of injury by using the incorrect knife as you won’t have complete control over the blade.

To hold the knife correctly, your index finger should be flat, and placed along the spine of the blade. Then, make sure you’ve got a firm grip around the handle, leaving your other hand free to manoeuvre the meat. That will greatly reduce the likelihood of injuring yourself while cutting.

Go against the grain

Always slice against the grain. It’s not just the quality the meat that determines how tender it is, the way it’s cut also plays a part. ‘Grain’ is the direction in which the muscle fibres align. This is a key thing to look out for before you start to cut, by cutting against the grain, you cut through the muscle fibres, which make for a more tender product. Going along with the grain can cause you to end up with tough meat which can be difficult to chew.

meat cuttings

Be biased in favour of good cuts

In butchery, there’s a technique known as bias cutting, which enables you to produce delicious, tender, bite-sized pieces of meat with every slice. Begin by placing your produce in the freezer for about an hour (this is common butchers practice), partially frozen meat is much easier to work with. Once that’s ready, get it onto a chopping board, place your knife at a 45-degree angle to the surface of the meat, then cut across the grain and Bob’s your uncle - expertly sliced meat that’s tender and ready to be cooked.

Be efficient when dealing with poultry and fish

Properly slicing up poultry and fish can be difficult, as there’s lots of skin and intricate little bones that can get in the way and mess things up, so it’s best to remove these before doing anything else. After removing the skin and bones, you’ll need to trim the tendons away by using a paring knife. Following that, you’ll then want to partially freeze them like we described in the bias cutting section above. Once that’s done, get your meat out onto a chopping board. This time, place your knife at a 90-degree angle, running parallel with the meat, and cut across the grain once again.

De-boning chicken

Another handy skill for any aspiring butcher. To start, you’ll need get yourself a de-boning knife, such as the Fischer boning knives we provide! Once you’ve got that in hand, place your chicken breast skin-side up on the cutting board, and get to work pulling the skin and subcutaneous fat away. After that, carefully slide your de-boning knife between the breast meat and the sternum of the chicken, and gently slice the meat from the bone.

That’s a brief rundown of a few knife skills you’ll be using which we cover in a bit more detail in our list of knife skills blog. However, if you plan on being a successful butcher, you won’t just need to have the practical skills down to a T - you’ll also need the knowhow to deal with the customers as well as the cutting! Speaking of which…

Customer service

It’s an often-underestimated skill, but a vital one for anyone in the trade to have. It’s one thing to be good with the practical skills, but if you’ve got the gift of the gab, that’s always a lovely bonus! The customer is the most important thing in running a business. You could have the best product in the world, but if you can’t maintain good relations with your customers, you won’t have a business left to run. Here are a few top tips for dealing with customers:

  • Always be polite.
  • Have a sense of humour - it’s always helpful when connecting with customers.
  • Go above and beyond - no task is too difficult or too inconvenient.
  • Use “Sir” over “mate”, and “Madam” over “Darling” - this is especially relevant, it shows an element of respect which your customer will appreciate.

If you’re starting out on your journey into butchery - good luck! And if you need a couple of tools to get you started, that’s where we can help here at Butchers Equipment Warehouse. We know butchers equipment inside out, supplying a range of machinery, accessories, and high quality knives from trusted, five star rated brands. Best of all, we won’t be beaten on price! If you have any questions or need advice, please give our friendly team a call on 01254 427721. If you’re looking for the best equipment, we’ve got you covered - take a look!