SEYMOUR, Mo. While many people spend Black Friday shopping , Marcus Knepp spends it processing deer meat at his family-owned Quality Meat Company near Seymour.
"I'd rather be doing this. I don't like crowds," he said with a smile.
Besides this time of year, "I'm too busy to do anything else," he added.
Knepp and several other meat processors we talked to on Friday said their business is up even though firearm deer hunters in the state killed about 22,000-less deer than last year's total.
According to preliminary numbers provided by the Missouri Dept. of Conservation, hunters in Missouri harvested 178,936 deer during the November portion of fall firearms deer season, Nov. 16- 26. Of the 178,936 deer harvested, 91,420 were antlered bucks, 17,237 were button bucks, and 70,279 were does.
Top harvest counties were Franklin with 4,008 deer checked, Texas with 3,734, and Callaway with 3,369.
Last year hunters checked 200,738 deer during the 2018 November portion of firearms deer season with 103,582 being antlered bucks, 20,040 being button bucks, and 77,116 being does.
"I have heard people say they were having a hard time seeing anything," Knepp said of talking with deer hunters returning from the woods this year.
Yet Marcus says his three year-old company, which also does beef and hog processing, has had about a 50 percent increase in deer meat orders, enough to keep them inundated with work.
"I try to leave the month of November open for deer season," he said. "We'll be heavy with beef and hogs in December."
Venison is an acquired taste for some but can be prepared in different forms and seasoned in different ways to change what can be a strong flavor.
"Deer meat is very lean," Knepp explained. "A lot of people add beef fat or pork fat to the ground meat to make it better. The snack sticks are the most popular. We just fill up the big long casings and smoke it for about five hours. People like those just a little bit better."
Just like the old saying, "People want their bacon but don't want to know how they make it", meat processing is a thankless job. But whether it's a steak or pork sandwich, these businesses make it happen and working with deer has its unique challenges.
"I think something most people don't realize that's very much a part of our business with deer is there's a lot of waste with a shot," Knepp said. "When you shoot a deer through the shoulders there's a lot of meat that gets wasted."
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November 30, 2019 at 06:29AM
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Deer harvest numbers down in Missouri, meat processors still busy - KY3
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