A champion Port Moody butcher is leading the search for the best butcher in British Columbia.
Taryn Barker, who’s competed individually at international events like Butcher Wars and been a part of Canada’s team at the World Butcher’s Challenge, is one of the organizers of the first BC’s Best Butcher competition that will take place Saturday, May 4, at Hopcott Farms’ event space in Pitt Meadows.
The owner of The Little Butcher in NewPort Village said her own experiences in competitive butchering have shown her the value preparing for such events and attaining a measuring stick for butchering skills and techniques can have in pushing the trade forward.
But bringing together all the disparate elements required to pull off a competitive butchering event, like securing judges, sponsors and a location to determining the nature of the skills to be tested and drawing up guidelines for competitors and judges, has taken several years.
“The first one is always the hardest,” Barker said of launching the inaugural contest.
Eighteen butchers from around the province will compete in three 45-minutes rounds to break down three different cuts of meat into as many products as they can. They’ll be judged in six categories, including their knife skills, attention to safety and sanitization, as well as their creativity and versatility carving up the cuts.
Abilities like tying a roast and frenching, or cutting away fat and meat from the bone to create an aesthetic presentation of a steak or rib chop will also be measured.
The three butchers with the highest scores from the preliminary rounds will advance to a black box final where they won’t know what kind of a cut they’ll be dealing with.
Barker said entrants range from young apprentices in their 20s to veterans who’ve been cutting meat for 30 or 40 years. She said they’re all excited to test their skills and learn from each other.
“Sometimes you’re so stuck doing the day-to-day things, you don’t have the time or chance to see other things,” Barker said. “This really pushes them to be better and brings the trade to a higher standard.”
That’s been Barker’s experience whenever she’s competed at events in places like New Zealand, Brazil and the United States.
“We’ve become accustomed to fast things,” she said of butchers’ comfort with familiar cuts for steaks and fillets that can be prepared quickly. “There’s so many cuts we don’t utilize as much.”
Honing skills on the butcher block translates to more variety and flavour possibilities at the meat counter for customers,” Barker said.
“They might see new products in their cases. Competition really pushes butchers to be better and bring a higher standard to their trade.”
The competition begins at 10 a.m. Spectators are welcome.
Hopcott Farms is located at 18385 Dewdney Trunk Rd. in Pitt Meadows.
