Intern Matt's trip to the lamb butcher

Last Tuesday morning my boss, Robert and I went to visit our lamb butcher in Newark, NJ. KOL Foods has to send its meat to be butchered in NJ because there is no USDA certified kosher butchers between Baltimore and Newark. Since KOL Foods’ products cross state lines, they need to be USDA certified. We were there because KOL Foods is start selling lamb by the cut for the first time and we wanted to learn by watching the process, while making sure the butcher understood what we wanted done.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from this butcher after our visit to our chicken processing plant which was completely different than what I expected. Rolling up to the front door of the butcher shop was interesting. It’s in the back streets of Newark almost in a back alley. There wasn’t much of a store front but rather one small door on the corner of the street with little to no signs. Had I been by myself I would have just gone right past it without even thinking. Although all this made it seem like this shop would be somewhat small on the contrary it was very spacious. Walking in Robert and I were greeted by everyone in the office. All the workers were very friendly and professional and it was nice to actually converse with them throughout our stay there as we worked through our order. The head butcher, Irving, was an extremely nice guy. He was very knowledgeable about the business, worked through our order absolutely flawlessly cutting and packaging our lamb exactly as we wanted, and the best part was he was cracking jokes all along the way.  Everyone up in Newark at the shop was friendly and you can tell that they enjoy what they do. Our trip up there was a very pleasant experience and I have to say the lamb we have looks amazing. Both Irving and Robert think so, so I’m sure our customers will be very pleased with it.