Butcher Bud is an online directory of local butcher shops, beef share farms, deer processors, livestock auctions, and other meat businesses in all 50 US states. Search by business name, category, or state to find one near you.
Choose a shop that can tell you where its meat comes from, will cut to order, and sells meat from an inspected plant. Open the Butcher Shops directory, pick your state and city, compare two or three listings, and call ahead before you drive over. These questions sort out a good fit quickly:
Beef, pork, lamb, and goat sold to the public has to come from a plant under federal or state inspection. A custom exempt processor only slaughters or cuts animals for the owner's own household, and that meat must be marked Not for Sale. This is why a beef share farm may send your animal to a custom processor while a retail butcher counter cannot sell that meat.
| Type | Who inspects | Where the meat can be sold |
|---|---|---|
| USDA inspected | USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) | Any state |
| State inspected (State MPI) | A state program enforcing rules "at least equal to" federal rules, under an agreement with FSIS | Within that state |
| State inspected (CIS program) | A state program enforcing rules the "same as" federal rules | Nationwide |
| Custom exempt | Exempt from inspection of the preparation, but must meet federal sanitation rules | Not for sale: the owner's household, nonpaying guests, and employees only |
Sources: USDA FSIS, State Cooperative Inspection Programs; 9 CFR 303.1, Exemptions. Hunters bringing in a deer should use the Wild Game Processing directory.
Search Butcher Bud by business name, category, and state with the search bar at the top of this page, or pick your state from the All 50 States list. Each state links to its cities and to category pages such as butcher shops, deer and game processors, beef share farms, livestock auctions, and mobile slaughter services. Every business has its own listing page with the details it has shared, such as its location, phone number, and any ratings on file.
A butcher shop cuts, trims, and sells fresh meat to the public, usually breaking larger primal cuts or whole carcasses down into steaks, roasts, chops, and ground meat on site. Many butcher shops also cut to order, make their own sausage, and carry beef, pork, lamb, or poultry from nearby farms. To find one near you, open the Butcher Shops directory and pick your state and city, then confirm hours and what the shop carries before you go.
A butcher shop sells cut meat to customers over the counter. A meat processor, including custom and deer or wild game processors, mainly takes animals that you or a farm already own and cuts, wraps, and freezes the meat for you to your cut sheet. Some businesses do both. If you are buying a beef share or bringing in a deer, look in the Beef Share Farms or Wild Game Processing categories rather than Butcher Shops.
Not every listing is independently verified. Many listings were added from public business sources, and free submissions go live automatically when they pass basic checks: a real business name, a recognized meat or farm category, a valid contact email, and a state. Anything that misses a check is reviewed by a person first. Claims of existing listings are always reviewed by a person, and claimed listings show a Verified badge. Confirm hours, pricing, and services directly with the business before you visit.
Butcher Bud lists butcher shops, deer and wild game processors, beef share farms, whole animal purchase options, wild game ranches, livestock auctions, knives and processing equipment suppliers, meat CSA subscriptions, mobile slaughter services, cold storage and packaging, registered breeders, semen and embryo suppliers, and farm stands. It also has sections for farms for sale and livestock for sale. Use the Browse by Type tiles on this page to open any category.
Use the List Your Business button on this page to submit a free listing. Free listings go live automatically when they pass basic checks: a real business name, a recognized meat or farm category, a valid contact email, and a state. Paid Premium and Featured plans place a listing above free listings on city pages, and the current plan details are shown in the pricing section of this page. If your business is already listed, you can claim it instead, and a person reviews each claim.
Yes. Butcher Bud has a page for every US state, linked in the All 50 States section of this page, and each state page links to its cities and categories. Coverage is uneven: some states have hundreds of listings and others only a handful, depending on which businesses have been added or submitted so far. The city and category pages show exactly what is listed in each area today.
Yes, through the Beef Share Farms category, which lists farms that sell quarter, half, and whole beef directly. Butcher Bud does not have a separate grass-fed filter, so open each farm's listing and ask how the cattle are raised and finished, because practices vary from farm to farm. Meat CSA subscriptions and farm stands are other ways to buy meat directly from local farms.
Butchery is the trade of slaughtering livestock and breaking carcasses down into primal cuts, retail cuts, and ground, cured, or smoked products. A butcher may work at a slaughter plant, a processing plant, or a retail shop. Retail butchery is mostly cutting: breaking sides and primals into steaks, roasts, and chops, trimming, grinding, and making sausage. Many small shops also do custom processing for farmers and hunters.
Some do. A meat distributor sells boxed meat in volume to restaurants, grocers, and institutions and usually has no retail counter. A butcher shop sells to the public, but many local shops also sell wholesale to nearby restaurants and caterers. Butcher Bud lists retail shops, processors, and farms rather than wholesale distributors, so call a local butcher and ask whether it offers wholesale pricing and delivery.
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