Butcher Shop Manager
Reports To: Owner/Company Leadership
Direct Report: Butcher Production Leader
Position Type: Full-Time Leadership
Expected Schedule: Approximately 45–55 hours per week
Availability: Open availability, including potential nights, weekends, holidays, and special events
Role Balance: Approximately 80% floor presence and 20% administrative work
Position Summary
The Butcher Shop Manager provides overall leadership and operational oversight for the butcher shop. This position is accountable for shop standards, staffing, product quality, efficiency, sanitation, organization, and the execution of company priorities.
The Manager works primarily through the Butcher Production Leader, who directs daily production, assigns employees, organizes workflow, and leads the production floor. The Manager establishes expectations, confirms that production plans support company needs, removes barriers, and holds the Production Leader and butcher team accountable.
This position requires strong practical butchery knowledge, including fabrication, yields, product specifications, rotation, production timing, food safety, and waste prevention. The Manager must be able to recognize problems, evaluate production decisions, coach effectively, and ensure company standards are maintained.
The Manager may assist with production when additional expertise or support is needed but should not routinely take over the Production Leader’s daily responsibilities.
Leadership and Chain of Command
The Manager has final authority for the butcher shop. Routine floor direction should flow through the Production Leader.
When both leaders are present, the Manager communicates priorities and company needs to the Production Leader, who organizes the team’s execution. The Manager should avoid bypassing or undermining the Production Leader in front of the team.
The Manager may give immediate direction when necessary to protect food safety, employee safety, guest service, product quality, company property, or the operation during an emergency.
Disagreements should be addressed privately. The Manager retains the final decision, but decisions may not lower food-safety or product-quality standards.
Primary ResponsibilitiesOperational Oversight
- Oversee the butcher shop’s overall performance and daily readiness.
- Establish standards for production, quality, sanitation, organization, merchandising, and guest service.
- Confirm that daily production supports retail, culinary, wholesale, and event needs.
- Redirect priorities when broader company needs change.
- Maintain a regular and active presence on the production floor.
- Remove barriers that prevent the team from meeting expectations.
- Ensure work is completed safely, accurately, efficiently, and on time.
- Maintain an organized, professional, and inspection-ready shop.
- Provide technical support or assist with production when needed.
Butchery and Product Standards
- Maintain strong knowledge of fabrication, portioning, trimming, grinding, sausage production, packaging, labeling, storage, and product utilization.
- Establish product specifications, cutting standards, portion expectations, and quality requirements.
- Evaluate production methods for quality, consistency, yield, safety, and efficiency.
- Confirm that products meet company standards before sale, transfer, or use.
- Protect product standards when changing production priorities or finding alternate uses for inventory.
- Delay or redirect production rather than allowing products to be completed below standard.
- Encourage responsible whole-animal utilization and recovery of usable product.
Production Leader Oversight
The Production Leader remains responsible for:
- Building and directing the daily production plan.
- Assigning employees and organizing workflow.
- Leading daily fabrication and production.
- Monitoring daily quality, rotation, storage, and execution.
- Handling callouts and immediate staffing adjustments.
- Providing hands-on training and basic coaching.
- Placing routine orders within the approved plan.
- Completing a management-log entry each day worked.
The Manager is responsible for:
- Setting the standards the Production Leader executes.
- Confirming that production plans meet company needs.
- Reviewing results and providing feedback.
- Supporting the Production Leader with larger employee or operational problems.
- Holding the Production Leader accountable for missed standards, preventable waste, incomplete work, or decisions that conflict with management direction.
- Developing the Production Leader’s planning, communication, leadership, and problem-solving abilities.
- Taking over matters that exceed the Production Leader’s authority.
Staffing and Scheduling
- Create the butcher shop schedule within the labor direction provided by Company Leadership.
- Schedule appropriate staffing and experience for expected business needs.
- Provide the Production Leader with the available staffing for each day.
- Allow the Production Leader to create the daily deployment and assignment plan.
- Review callouts, attendance patterns, overtime risks, and coverage concerns.
- Support the Production Leader when a callout cannot be resolved through normal adjustments.
- Communicate significant staffing shortages or scheduling risks to Company Leadership.
- Adjust schedules for changes in business, events, wholesale needs, or production.
Team Leadership
- Maintain a professional, respectful, and accountable workplace.
- Establish expectations for attendance, conduct, performance, safety, and communication.
- Partner with the Production Leader to onboard and train employees.
- Ensure employees receive required technical, sanitation, safety, and equipment training.
- Allow the Production Leader to handle hands-on instruction and basic floor-level coaching.
- Address repeated or serious performance and behavior concerns.
- Document performance issues and corrective conversations.
- Conduct evaluations and employee-development conversations.
- Recognize strong performance and identify opportunities for growth.
- Maintain confidentiality and handle employee concerns professionally.
Hiring and Discipline
- Identify staffing needs and obtain approval to fill positions when required.
- Participate in recruiting, interviewing, selection, and hiring.
- Make hiring decisions within approved staffing levels and company procedures.
- Handle formal discipline and supporting documentation.
- Maintain accurate attendance, conduct, and performance records.
- Involve Company Leadership before suspending or terminating an employee.
- Immediately escalate serious safety violations, harassment, threats, theft, or similar incidents.
Inventory, Ordering, and Receiving
- Establish approved vendors, order guides, par levels, spending limits, and ordering expectations.
- Ensure orders reflect inventory, production plans, events, wholesale commitments, and expected demand.
- Allow the Production Leader to prepare and place routine orders within the approved plan.
- Review and approve expected spending when required.
- Prevent duplicate orders, excessive inventory, unnecessary purchasing, and avoidable shortages.
- Participate in inventory counts with the Production Leader and team.
- Review count accuracy, variances, and significant discrepancies.
- Ensure deliveries are checked for quantity, quality, temperature, condition, and specification.
- Ensure products are labeled, dated, stored, and rotated correctly.
- Hold the Production Leader accountable for daily quality and rotation.
- Address invoice discrepancies, credits, damaged products, vendor problems, and recurring delivery issues.
- Maintain accurate and usable order guides.
Efficiency and Cost Awareness
Financial oversight is limited and focused primarily on operating efficiency. The Manager is not the primary owner of company budgeting, pricing strategy, major spending, or the full profit-and-loss statement unless directed by Company Leadership.
The Manager is responsible for monitoring:
- Product yield and usable recovery.
- Preventable waste.
- Labor deployment and overtime.
- Production flow and completion.
- Ordering discipline.
- Inventory accuracy and rotation.
- Receiving accuracy and vendor credits.
- Portion consistency.
- Equipment use and care.
The Manager must review waste and yield trends, identify recurring problems, establish corrective expectations, and confirm that improvements are sustained.
The Production Leader is accountable for daily execution and preventable floor-level waste. The Manager is accountable for correcting planning, training, leadership, or system problems that contribute to waste.
Company Leadership approval is required for major purchases, unbudgeted expenses, significant vendor commitments, or decisions with a major cost impact.
Retail and Merchandising
- Establish standards for the appearance, cleanliness, stocking, and organization of the retail space.
- Delegate daily case setup, stocking, rotation, and maintenance through the Production Leader.
- Confirm that products are properly labeled, priced, displayed, and rotated.
- Coordinate promotional and specialty-product needs with Company Leadership.
- Obtain approval for major pricing, promotional, or product-strategy changes.
- Ensure established presentation standards are maintained after implementation.
Culinary, Wholesale, and Event Support
- Coordinate production with culinary, wholesale, catering, and event needs.
- Review requests for specifications, quantity, timing, labor, and product availability.
- Communicate approved needs to the Production Leader.
- Allow the Production Leader to organize and facilitate the required production.
- Confirm that products are completed to specification and on time.
- Collaborate with other department leaders and take appropriate items from their needs lists.
- Communicate capacity problems or conflicting commitments early.
- Obtain approval before accepting major commitments, establishing pricing, or changing wholesale terms.
- Reprioritize work when broader company needs require it while maintaining product and safety standards.
Food Safety and Sanitation
- Maintain overall accountability for butcher shop food safety and compliance.
- Establish standards for sanitation, temperature control, labeling, storage, allergens, traceability, and cross-contamination prevention.
- Ensure HACCP plans, logs, records, and procedures are followed.
- Confirm that the Production Leader and team complete required daily checks.
- Maintain readiness for regulatory and internal inspections.
- Correct unsafe conditions immediately.
- Stop production or product use when safety standards are not met.
- Ensure employees understand knife, chemical, equipment, and personal-protective-equipment requirements.
- Immediately report serious food-safety or employee-safety incidents.
Equipment and Facility
- Establish standards for equipment operation, cleaning, inspection, and care.
- Ensure the Production Leader oversees daily equipment checks.
- Remove unsafe or malfunctioning equipment from service.
- Coordinate repairs and obtain approval for major repairs or replacements.
- Maintain an organized, clean, and operationally ready shop.
- Hold employees accountable for equipment neglect or misuse.
Guest Service
- Ensure guests are treated with urgency, knowledge, professionalism, and respect.
- Support the team with special requests, complaints, and service recovery.
- Empower employees to take reasonable action to care for a guest.
- Follow the principle that the guest is taken care of first and internal coaching happens afterward.
- Resolve serious or repeated concerns and document significant incidents.
Communication
- Conduct a daily huddle with the Production Leader covering staffing, priorities, shortages, events, wholesale needs, and concerns.
- Conduct a weekly review of production, waste, inventory, staffing, quality, training, and upcoming needs.
- Complete a management-log entry every day worked.
- Require the Production Leader to complete a separate entry every day worked.
- Document important decisions, callouts, shortages, product concerns, equipment problems, employee matters, and follow-up needs.
- Escalate significant risks promptly.
Decision Authority
The Manager may independently make decisions regarding:
- Daily shop and production priorities.
- Routine production and schedule adjustments.
- Employee assignments communicated through the Production Leader.
- Product rotation, recovery, repurposing, or removal.
- Routine ordering within approved limits.
- Immediate guest recovery.
- Employee coaching and formal discipline short of suspension or termination.
- Food-safety and sanitation corrections.
- Removal of unsafe equipment from service.
Company Leadership approval is required for:
- Suspension or termination.
- Major or unbudgeted spending.
- Capital equipment purchases.
- Significant vendor changes or commitments.
- Major pricing or promotional changes.
- New wholesale terms or significant outside commitments.
- Decisions with a major effect on company labor or product costs.
- Company-wide commitments.
During a serious emergency requiring immediate authority, the Manager must call Company Leadership and clearly identify the call as a “911.”
Measures of Success
- Product quality and consistency.
- Production completed accurately and on time.
- Yield, waste, and inventory performance.
- Ordering accuracy and product availability.
- Appropriate labor deployment and overtime control.
- Food-safety and sanitation results.
- Equipment care and shop organization.
- Employee training, accountability, and retention.
- Production Leader development and performance.
- Guest satisfaction.
- Successful culinary, wholesale, and event fulfillment.
- Consistent communication and documentation.
Qualifications
- Five or more years of professional butchery, fabrication, meat-cutting, or comparable production experience.
- Strong knowledge of fabrication, yields, portioning, grinding, packaging, storage, and product utilization.
- Two or more years of leadership or management experience in a butcher shop, meat department, production kitchen, or similar operation.
- Ability to lead effectively through a Production Leader.
- Experience with scheduling, inventory, ordering, receiving, rotation, waste tracking, and production planning.
- Working knowledge of food safety, sanitation, temperature control, and traceability.
- Ability to identify product-quality, yield, and production-flow problems.
- Ability to coach employees, document performance, and conduct difficult conversations.
- Strong organization, communication, judgment, and follow-through.
- ServSafe Manager certification or ability to obtain it within the required timeframe.
- HACCP knowledge or ability to complete required training.
Physical and Schedule Requirements
- Ability to stand and work on the production floor for extended periods.
- Ability to lift, carry, push, or pull at least 50 pounds.
- Ability to safely use knives, saws, grinders, slicers, mixers, and packaging equipment.
- Ability to work in refrigerated, freezer, wet, and changing-temperature environments.
- Ability to perform repetitive production movements.
- Ability to work approximately 45–55 hours weekly based on business needs.
- Open availability, including early mornings, nights, weekends, holidays, and special events.
This description identifies the position’s primary responsibilities but does not include every possible duty. Responsibilities may change based on business needs and direction from Company Leadership.
Pay: From $52,000.00 per year
Benefits:
Work Location: In person
