PROTEIN U is creating the first sustainable butcher network in the United States, supporting responsible farms and heritage species of livestock. Our mission is to create an online resource populated with a family tree of butchery techniques from whole animal breakdowns to sausage making from across the globe. We also seek to assist butchers and the trade by promoting the art and skill of butchering through private annual events such as Protien U, Primal, and The Who's Your Butcher Pig Cutting Competition at Cochon 555. We seek to promote sharing knowledge and resources with the butchering industry and create a network encompassing all butchers, from the boutique butcher shop to supermarkets to processing plants.

Today, top restaurants and butcher shops are sourcing whole animals from responsible farms across the country. Participating provides ethical and economical benefits, but something is still missing. Those sharing the ideology of "pasture to plate" are looking to expand butchery techniques but our educational system is lacking an online resource. We need a 24-hour a day channel of butcher techniques complete with a network of farms, cutrooms, mobile processors and kitchens from across the globe. ProteinU is creating a "peer to peer" network with a goal to preserve the art of the butcher. We welcome you into our community.

The trade of meat cutting and butchering is disappearing where and when we need it most. COCHON 555 can not change the system (not yet, anyway), but we can celebrate people who are favorably tilting the scales for our local producers. Years ago, the butcher was a celebrated job, and people regularly discussed cuts of meats with 'their' butcher. This period is once again upon us; consumers want to know where their food comes from, who is responsible for it and what to do with it at home.

We are looking to the few remaining butchers tucked away local shops, in the back of supermarkets, in packing plants and slaughterhouses, wherever they have been able to find work. Our goal is to celebrate these men and women. To promote them as intricate parts of our food supply. Our aim is to make it a desirable trade and restore the art and integrity once associated with the work. We want butchers to take as much pride in their skills as our chefs and farmers do. This pride will only encourage a growth in skills. This rise in skills will in turn lead to a growth in wages and create more butchering jobs. It has worked in the kitchen and farms, and so we expect it to work in the slaughterhouses and processing plants. In return, we the chefs, retailers, farmers and consumers will get back the last missing piece in a local and sustainable food supply for our proteins.

FOUNDERS: Anthony Renda & Brady Lowe
OUTREACH & PARTNERSHIPS: Brady Lowe
COCHON 555 BUTCHER COMPETITION LEADS: Jamey Lionette, Adam Tibiero

We have created PROTEIN U to:

1. Start a foundation to provide economic and ethical benefits to kitchens using whole animals (professional and non-professional)
2. Support niche farms through promotion of heritage breeds and whole animal sourcing, a.k.a. "short circuit"
3. Bring back the art of the butcher in *small to medium markets across the nation