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Butcher briefs that survive the plate.
Each carcass comes with the camp, forage and handling record of the animal it came from. The butcher brief says which cuts to take from each carcass for each chef. Each cut is labelled with that lot record, so the chef can name the camp on the menu.
When our deer arrive at the abattoir, we hand over each tagged animal with its full lot record. Each lot carries its veld story, from which farm and which veld camp, down to what forage the animals were on during the last months. This information shapes our butcher brief: we highlight the muscle groups where tenderness meets flavour, and we specify how to separate fallow from red or chital, as each breed's texture and fat layer differ. It's practical: a fallow deer grazing under sweet thorn in the lower camps will yield different backstrap than a red deer raised on bossie in the higher camps. We also check with the abattoir chiller team that backup power keeps the lot chilled if the mains trip.
Seasonality shapes our butchery. Lots from July, early in the harvest window, are leaner, with tight muscle and little fat cover, while September lots carry a little more fat. After rain, the meat can carry subtle grassy notes, especially on the Karoo Edge farm where the veld greens up quickly. This means our briefs adapt week to week: one Friday I had to ring back to the abattoir because I’d written 'flank' instead of 'shoulder' on a lot order sheet, and the chef was waiting for the right cut. Our butchers know to expect these changes, and we review our notes with them in person whenever possible.
Mistakes in a brief show up when the chef starts portioning. A rushed cut can lose the line between the sirloin and the rump, making a steak that cooks unevenly. We once had a batch where the chital venison was trimmed too close, losing the fat cap that gives it its unique finish. That lesson stuck: our butchers now double-check the marking on each carcass, and we update our instructions if a mistake slips through.
At each delivery, we walk through the batch with the abattoir butchers. We look for these points before anything is portioned:
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Named cuts like these come from Farm Table Venison lots.
