Small meat markets on the rise in mid-Michigan area

Local meat sourcing was top culinary trend for 2014

By Rachel Greco
Lansing State Journal

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Greg Saltzman will tell you up front, he’s a meat man.

Dressed in a white butcher’s coat, a camouflage baseball cap and wire-rimmed glasses, he rests his arms on the massive counter at Whitetail Farms Farm Market in Olivet. Inside the counter’s glass coolers are trays filled with different flavors of freshly made bratwurst, thick cuts of steak, smoked pork chops and deli meat for slicing.

He talks with customers, filling their orders at the 6,400-square-foot business. It opened in May and is Saltzman’s retirement plan.

After a 29-year career spent cutting meat for Felpausch supermarkets he’s joined a growing number of entrepreneurs who say a demand for small meat markets has grown in mid-Michigan. In the last four years several have opened in and around Lansing.

“I wanted service and one-on-one with my customers,” Saltzman told the Lansing State Journal. “I’ve been into the big box stores and not seen a soul. You don’t see meat men anymore. If a customer’s got a problem or a complaint we’re here to answer their questions and make it right.”

Knowledge is part of a meat market’s appeal, said Shirley Decker.

Her family opened Mert’s Specialty Meats in Okemos in 2011. Last year they expanded their West Grand River store, doubling the sales floor, and opened a second location in Lansing.
Decker started the business with her husband Mert Prescott and their son. All three had retail experience but when they opened Mert’s many people questioned if the business would last.

“After we opened we had people say, ‘Aren’t you scared? You opened during a recession.’ Never once was I scared,” she said. “This community will support us because we do it right.”
Business has been steady ever since. Decker said they encourage their 14 employees to offer customers advice when they come in to buy meat.

“We spend a lot of time with customers helping them to learn how to cook the meat or grill it,” she said. “They call us and ask. We want the staff to get to know our customers. We call our customers by name.”

Linn Merindorf says his customers, at Merindorf Meats in Mason and Williamston, are loyal.

His meat market dates back to 1997. Like many in the business he gained experience cutting meat at a grocery store. He processed venison and beef for family and friends on the side before becoming his own boss.

Merindorf said small meat markets exist because they have a following of customers who want quality meat and are willing to pay a bit more for it.

“We have a minority but our minority is people who want to come to our stores,” he said. “The customers that come to me go out of their way to come to me.”

Saltzman said meat markets offer people as much or as little of something as they want. At Whitetail staff can sell one bratwurst or several pounds and each one is made on site.
Hamburger is also ground on site and staff leave it on the shelves for just a few days instead of weeks.

Simply put, “People have distrust in prepackaged meat,” he said.

Research supports the theory that an interest in local meat is growing among consumers.

Last year Michigan State University’s Center for Regional Food Systems offered a report that looked at several studies assessing the demand for local meat in the United States.
The research showed that local meat sourcing was named the number one culinary trend for 2014. The report also stated that consumers are willing to pay more for local meat.

That doesn’t surprise Mike Bellingar. His father, Eugene, started Bellingar Packing in Clinton County nearly 40 years ago. The 10,000-square-foot meat processing operation expanded five years ago, adding a 700-square-foot retail area with a meat counter. Staff offer custom cuts of beef, pork and chicken along with sausages, jerky and bologna that’s made on site.
Bellingar said people want meat that’s free of chemicals and additives that are often used to preserve it once packaged. Those aren’t used at his business.

”We cut it fresh,” he said. “We don’t add solution to it or preservatives. There’s a freshness to it.”

Brian Hengesbach is one of four owners of General’s Smokehouse and Meat Market just outside of Grand Ledge. The business smokes its own bacon and pulled pork and makes 30 different types of sausages on site. Other meats for sale there are produced in the Midwest and cut to order.

He said in the few years that the 3,000-square-foot meat market has been open he’s noticed an interest from customers in where meat comes from and how fresh it actually is.
“They come in and talk to us,” said Hengesbach. “And they see what they’re getting.”

At Tirrell Farmstead Specialties in Charlotte a lot of the meat and cheese for sale there is hyper-local, produced across the street at Ben Tirrell’s 60-acre centennial farm.

Tirrell’s lamb, beef and sheep dairy cheeses are displayed in freezer cases at the small farm store, which was once a one-room schoolhouse. Although not a traditional meat market, during Thanksgiving and Christmas the business offers turkeys from Eaton County, too.

“Meat is actually our number one seller here,” said Tirrell. “It really always has been. We have our own animals and there’s a big difference. People really seem to appreciate that and be willing to spend a touch more for a nice piece of meat.”

Saltzman said he’s seen no signs that his business will slow down anytime soon.

“I was expecting a customer here, a customer there,” he said. “I never dreamed it would be this good. The parking lot’s full.”

That support makes the investment he made in Whitetail seem worthwhile.

“It’s my life,” he said.