ShopRite Highlights In-Store Butcher Service for Holidays

ShopRite is highlighting its team of trained in-house butchers to assist customers with meat purchasing decisions for holiday entertaining. Services include personalized cuts, hand-tied prime rib roasts, special pre-orders and guidance on the best cuts and sizing of meat.

The Keasbey, N.J.-based retailer’s team of butchers at its Pearl River, N.Y., location has nearly 160 years of combined experience, offering service similar to that of an old-fashioned corner meat market where butchers have developed relationships with their customers.

“Our ShopRite butchers provide great service with a real personal touch that our customers appreciate,” ShopRite Pearl River Meat Manager Bill Scorzetti said in a statement. “We want to give the best cut of meat to our customers because that means they will come back to us.”

Bernard Smith, 83, has worked at the Pearl River location for the last decade, and has more than 60 years of butcher experience. “I love what I do, and I love working with customers,” Smith said. “We take a lot of pride in our work.”

At ShopRite of Hillsdale in Hillsdale, N.J., Tony Garcia, a third-generation butcher, followed his family’s tradition in the trade.

“The first thing my dad said was, ‘You have to take care of the customer,'” Garcia said. “That’s the key to the business. If you take care of the customer, you’ll be fine.”

The ShopRite of Hillsdale in New Jersey recently opened one of the very first certified organic butcher shops in a supermarket. Butchers at the store will have the ability to custom cut organic beef, poultry and pork on a USDA-certified counter dedicated to organic food preparation.

As more consumers seek grass-fed, organic and pasture-raised meats, ShopRite also recently introduced Farm Promise, a line of beef and pork products that comes from family-owned farms in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and upstate New York.

ShopRite stores were also recently recognized as a top seller of Certified Angus Beef (CAB), meeting strict standards for marbling, tenderness, appearance and taste when it comes to the CAB label.