A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat or any combination of these three tasks.http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/butcher They may prepare standard cuts of meat, poultry, fish and shellfish for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments. A butcher may be employed by supermarkets, grocery stores, butcher shops and fish markets or may be self-employed.http://www5.hrsdc.gc.ca/NOC/English/NOC/2006/QuickSearch.aspx?val65=6251

An ancient trade, whose duties may date back to the domestication of livestock, butchers formed guilds in England as far back as 1272.http://www.yorkbutchersgild.com/pages/history.html Today, many jurisdictions offer trade certifications for butchers. Some areas expect a three-year apprenticeship followed by the option of becoming a master butcher.http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/qc/job_futures/statistics/6251.shtmlhttp://members.shaw.ca/masterbutcher/butcher.html

Primary butchery in a meat packing plant, 1873

Butchery is a traditional work. In the industrialized world, slaughterhouses use butchers (slaughtermen, in British English) to slaughter the animals, performing one or a few of the steps repeatedly as specialists on a semiautomated disassembly line. The steps include stunning (rendering the animal unconscious in a humane manner), exsanguination (severing the carotid or brachial arteries to facilitate blood removal), skinning (removing the hide or pelt) or scalding and dehairing (pork), evisceration (removing the viscera) and splitting (dividing the carcass in half along the spinal column).

After the carcasses are chilled (unless "hot-boned"), primary butchery consists of selecting carcasses, sides, or quarters from which primal cuts can be produced with the minimum of wastage, separate the primal cuts from the carcasses using the appropriate tools and equipment following company procedures, trim primal cuts and prepare for secondary butchery or sale, and store cut meats hygienically and safely. Secondary butchery involves boning and trimming primal cuts in preparation for sale. Historically, primary and secondary butchery were performed in the same establishment, but the advent of methods of preservation and low cost transportation has largely separated them.

In the rest of the world, it is common for butchers to perform many or all of the butcher's duties. Where refrigeration is less common, these skills are required to sell the meat of slaughtered animals in a timely manner.

A butcher shop in Feira de Santana, Brazil.

Some butchers sell their goods in specialized stores, commonly termed a butcher shop. Butchers at a butcher shop may perform primary butchery, but will typically perform secondary butchery to prepare fresh cuts of meat for sale. These shops may also sell related products, such as food preparation supplies, baked goods and grocery items. Butcher shops can have a wider variety of animal types, meat cuts and quality of cuts. Additionally, butcher shops may focus on a particular culture, or nationality, of meat production. Some butcher shops, termed "meat delis", may also include a delicatessen.http://www.sameatshops.ca/

These types of shops are still common in small towns or underdeveloped regions, but are becoming less common in cities because of the increasing popularity of supermarkets. Supermarkets employ butchers for secondary butchery, but even that role is diminished with the advent of "case-ready" meat, where the product is packaged for retail sale at the packinghouse or specialized central processing plants.

See also, List of People with the Pseudonym Butcher

In various periods and cultures, the term "butcher" was applied to people who acted cruelly to other human beings or slaughtered them. For example, Pompey - a prominent Roman general and politician of the First Century B.C. - got the Latin nickname adulescentulus carnifex, translated as "The Teenage Butcher" or "The Butcher Boy", due to brutal treatment of political opponents in the early part of his career.