Stearns focuses on retail as farm business slows

CHARLTON — It was midafternoon in the meat-cutting room at Ed Stearns Dressed Meats Inc., and co-owner Rick Stearns was doing some precision steak cutting for a customer.

“Could you just cut it a little bit more?” the customer asked Mr. Stearns, who promptly cut the steak to the customer’s direction. While the customer waited, another shopper picked up 40 pounds of hamburger that had been processed in a machine to the side of meat counter.

Mr. Stearns, who owns the business with his sister Tammy Mitchell, said his father Ed Stearns Jr. told him that you should always do your best to make sure everybody leaves the business satisfied, even if it means cutting a steak a quarter-inch bigger than first specified.

“All it takes is one bad experience, and the customer may go someplace else and never come back,” Mr. Stearns said.

It’s a lesson Mr. Stearns recalled recently as he spoke about how the business his grandparents, Margerite and Ed Stearns Sr., established in 1932 has changed. Ed Stearns Dressed Meats closed its custom slaughterhouse about a year ago, and in early September it moved from its home of more than 40 years on Route 169 to leased space at 27B Worcester Road, also known as Route 20.

Mr. Stearns said the business once had hundreds of slaughterhouse customers and needed all of the approximately 4,500 square feet of space at its former location. However, the business started changing about 10 years ago, he said.

The price of farmland increased, and that, as well as an increase in the price of grain, meant many local farmers who used to have their meat processed at Stearns shut down their farms, Mr. Stearns said.

“There simply isn’t nearly as many local farmers now as there once was, and we didn’t need the space,” he said.

Mr. Stearns acknowledged that it wasn’t easy to leave the old site.

“It was tough walking out of there for the last time,” he said. “But it was something we had to do.”

The business now rents 3,600 square feet in a building owned by Ted Mroczkowski. The building also houses Mr. Mroczkowski’s business, Ted’s Package Store.

“I’ve known Rick for 40 years,” Mr. Mroczkowski said. “So far it’s been working out great for everybody concerned.”

While Mr. Stearns works with customers, Ms. Mitchell is more involved with the financial side of the business. She said it is too soon for specific numbers, but business has increased since the approximately two-mile move. Mr. Stearns agreed.

“When we were on Route 169, we were a destination. People went there because they knew we were there,” he said. “Since we’ve moved, we’ve been seeing faces we have never seen before. There’s a lot more drive-up business.”

The fate of the former site is not yet clear. The property contains about 4.5 acres with an assessed value of $407,300, according to a spokesman for Charlton Board of Assessors.

The Stearnses sold an 11,220-square-foot parcel on the property in October for $91,000 to the town of Charlton for a future pump house that will be part of a project to bring public water to parts of town where toxins have been detected in the wells of more than 20 homes.

Ms. Mitchell said there have been several inquiries about the site but that she and her brother have been focusing on the move of the business.

The new Stearns site has a larger prepared food section that features a variety of marinated meats, sausages, homemade chili, beef stew and soup.

The retail side of the business started with the Blizzard of ’78, when farmers couldn’t bring animals for slaughtering and Stearns had meat that had to be cooked or lost. Since then, retail sales have increased, with Ms. Mitchell doing much of the food preparation.

Mr. Stearns and Ms. Mitchell said the prepared food, which mostly just needs to be reheated, is making up a large share of the establishment’s business.

“Everybody is so busy these days that there is a real need for that,” Mr. Stearns said.

Ann Scales, director of media relations for the state Department of Public Health, said in an email that Ed Stearns Dressed Meats is the only custom slaughterhouse the DPH’s Food Protection Program knows of that has converted to retail. Ms. Scales, however, added that local health boards issue retail permits, so “we don’t have an estimate of the change in the number of retail permits over time.”

The Food Protection Program estimated a few years back there were about 10 custom slaughterhouses in the state, according to Ms. Scales. Today the statewide estimate “is closer to six,” she said.

That means farmers who relied on Ed Stearns Dressed Meats now must look elsewhere for slaughtering services.

Charlie Franklin, owner of Franklin Farm in Pomfret, said he misses taking animals from his farm to Stearns for processing. Now he goes to a slaughterhouse farther away.

“I had been going there since 1985,” he said. “I miss them.”

Peter Blash, owner of Blash’s Pig Farm in Millbury, also went to Stearns for many years.

“Yes, I miss them,” he said, adding that he now takes his pigs to Adams Farm Slaughterhouse in Athol or Arena & Sons Slaughterhouse in Hopkinton.