The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Acut above the rest of the industry
Fairfield butcher looks to improve state meat production
Fairfield butcher Tim Frosina is trying to fix the meat production industry one cow at a time.
He owns Custom Meats, a whole animal butchery at 1903 Post Road in Fairfield that he describes as an old school butchery with modernday ideals, particularly when comes to helping local farmers and the environment.
“What is a modern ideal is caring about how the animal was raised, how the animal was slaughtered, how it was milked and everything in between,” Frosina said. “I could’ve made money doing anything else … but I decided to get into sustainable food because I care.”
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, commercial red meat production for the United States, which includes beef, pork, veal and lamb, totaled 4.59 billion pounds in July, up 8 percent from the same period last year.
According Frosina that kind of production won’t last long term, which is why he and his team have committed themselves to setting what he described as a more sustainable example.
Unconventional journey
Frosina does not come from a long line of butchers. He said his introduction to traditional butchery was rooted in his desire to know where the meat he ate was coming from and whether its production was humane and sustainable.
“It just got to the point where there was no other way that I wanted to eat meat or support anyone who was not raising meat the same way,” he said.
That viewpoint gave him an interest in the meat industry and its effect on the environment while studying at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.
After learning the ins and outs of farming and its impact on sustainable meat production, Frosina said he was hooked. What began as a personal preference grew into a means of changing what the Norwalk native described as a “broken food system.”
After graduating from UConn in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, his interest took him to Corsica, France, where he learned French butchery, farming and culinary techniques.
While in France, Frosina opened a wholehog barbecue food truck with his fiancée, Bérénice Angelini. The couple sourced its pork from local farmers and smoked them in traditional barbecue fashion, spending about a year there before returning to Connecticut and eventually opening Custom Meats in 2017.
Since opening his shop, Frosina said the positive reception in Fairfield and in the region has continued to surprise him. It didn’t hurt that he was featured on “The Butcher” on the History Chanel in June where he won what he described as “Chopped for butchers” against three other contenders.
Most of Custom Meat’s customer base comes from residents looking for quality meat, Frosina said, but the shop also caters to restaurants.
“There is always going to be a market for really good meat, which is why we get our meat locally,” he said. “Most places where you buy meat, people have no idea where their meat comes from or who even raised it.”
Local and sustainable
A large part of Custom Meat’s business model is focused on helping local farmers whose methods align with Forsina’s desire to sell products that are raised humanely and sustainably and within 75 miles of the shop.
“These are people whose whole life has been this and the moment you go to their farm and you talk to them, you see that,” he said.
Custom Meat partners with Sepe Farm in Sandy Hook, Shaggy Coos Farm in Easton, Walden Hill Farm in Oxford and Sir William Farm in Craryville, N.Y.
Thus far the support has been appreciated, according to local farmers.
“He likes good relationships with the farmers and knows where the product is coming from and how it’s raised,” said Peter Sepe, coowner of Sepe Farm, which provides grassfed lamb to Custom Meats.
Britney Conover, manager at Shaggy Coos, echoed the sentiments.
“I think he is definitely blazing his own trail, but it is the start of a trend,” she said. “Once people get over the organic trend and realize it’s really not sustainable at all, they will probably move towards a more local kind of concept that Tim is doing.”
According to Sepe, other butchers have tried to practice the same approach in the past, but Frosina has proven to stand behind his values.
“Good farming as our farmers do it is nothing short of replicating nature,” Frosina said. “Where the faults come in farming is when people don’t respect that process.”