000327 Prepackaged Meat Squeezing Butchers

After 24 years as a butcher, Maurice Miller suddenly is faced with the possibility of losing his livelihood despite an apparent shortage of people with meat-cutting skills.

“I never thought I'd see the end of meat-cutting in stores,” said Miller, who works at Wal-Mart in Jacksonville, Texas. “It looks like I'm going to have to start thinking about it.”

Wal-Mart last week announced plans to eliminate butchers at 180 of its stores and begin selling prepackaged meat. The world's largest retailer said meat wrapped at the packing plant looks better than meat wrapped by store butchers and consumers prefer it.

Meat-industry officials say the move is part of a larger trend that could drastically reduce the number of butchers behind the counters of America's grocery stores.

Wal-Mart, widely admired in the retail industry for its often-innovative cost-cutting and merchandising steps, insisted consumer tastes, not a fight with a big union, was behind the decision to eliminate butchers in its Supercenter stores in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kansas and Missouri. Eventually, Wal-Mart plans to eliminate meat-cutting in all its U.S. stores, said spokesman Les Copeland.

But the timing of the the announcement raised eyebrows, even among Wal-Mart allies. The company disclosed its move at a hearing on a union election in one of its Texas stores. Just last month, butchers at another Wal-Mart, in Jacksonville, Texas, voted 7-3 to form the first union in a U.S. Wal-Mart.

“Leaders in organized labor think the Texas vote was one of their most significant wins in the last 10 years, even though it was only 10 people,” said Burt Flickinger III, a food-industry consultant to stores such as Wal-Mart.

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