CLC’s New Facility Offering More Opportunity For Meat & Butchery Students

Central Lakes College’s meat cutting and butchery program has introduced a brand-new facility to the campus this year.

Central Lakes College’s Meat Cutting & Butchery program prepares students to receive, cut and package meat in commercial establishments, and to one day function as licensed meat cutters and butchers.

And what better way to prepare students than to implement a classroom that doubles as a butchery.

“We are able to definitely broaden our horizons in what we can teach,” Central Lakes College Meat Cutting & Butchery Program Instructor Jess Feierabend said. “We’re able to make it about 80% lab and then about 20% of the bookwork, which I believe that most of the students that sign up for this course are looking to get their hands on carcasses, get their hands on meat so that they can be proficient in whatever career they take on after this.”

One half of the pod is a freezer where the meat hangs, while the other is a classroom where students learn to cut…giving students a chance to learn about the entire lifecycle of an animal from an agricultural, meat production, and culinary arts perspective, and take part in that hands-on experience.

“Some days we’re going to be out at the farm, taking a look at those live animals and judging them on how they are going to be in comparison to when we start to harvest them,” Feierabend said. “For the most part, these students are going to come in here and spend the majority of their time getting their hands on those carcasses, on that sausage, or beef, ping, lamb, whatever it will be, learning how to break that down and where those parts actually come from.”

And so far, C.L.C.’s Meat Cutting & Butchery students appear to be taking a liking to the brand-new facility.

“When we first started, we were in the kitchens,” Central Lakes College Meat Cutting & Butchery Student Tay Faber said. “And I can honestly tell you it is a lot easier to do things in here.”

“Temperature control, that makes it a lot easier. We can have meat out longer,” Central Lakes College Meat Cutting & Butchery Student Parker Witulsky said. “It’s a lot more efficient with cleaning and even cutting. Everything is where it should be and then it’s similar to a real-world situation.”

The meat market is booming and only going up in the U.S., as according to Statista, revenue in the meat market amounts to over 137 billion dollars in the U.S. in 2025 with the market expected to grow annually by 4.48%

All of which provide plenty of extra incentive for students to show interest not only the career, but also receiving the best possible prep for their futures.

“The level of detail that we are given here,” Faber said. “For example, we are taught how the knife actually works. Your knife cuts by the movement, not the pressure you are putting down on it. At the Cub Foods that I started an intern at. With me being a day there, I was able to assist the employee that had been there longer than I had.”

C.L.C.’s Meat Cutting and butchery program will be teaching cutting and packaging next fall and sausage smoking and curing to the curriculum in the spring of 2026.