Custom-exempt · Cattle
Custom beef processing in Waterboro, Maine
Perry Butcher Co. processes customer-owned cattle under Maine's custom exemption. The animal is yours before it arrives and the meat comes back to you, cut, wrapped and labeled to the sheet you filled in.
- Species
- Cattle
- Basis
- Custom-exempt, customer-owned
- Marking
- Not for sale
- Butcher experience
- 20+ years
- Location
- Waterboro, ME
- Cut plan
- Plan it online
The work, in order
Five stages from booking to collection
Call the shop and book a date
Processing dates depend on the season and on what is already on the schedule. Get in touch before you need the slot, particularly heading into autumn.
Confirm ownership and your details
The custom exemption applies to animals the customer owns, so the paperwork establishes who the animal belongs to and who the finished meat is going to.
Build a mockup on the beef cut sheet
Work through it primal by primal at home: steak thickness, roast size, pack counts, and what goes to ground. The online sheet does not submit a processing order; it is how you arrive knowing what you want.
Bring it in and finalize together
Save or print your sheet and bring it with you. You and the butcher go through it in person, sort out anything that will not work as written, and the instructions are settled then.
Processing, then collection
The carcass is broken down and cut to the sheet you confirmed in person, wrapped and labeled with the not-for-sale marking. Clear freezer space first and bring coolers.
for sale
Custom-exempt beef is processed for the owner's own use: your household, your non-paying guests, your employees. It is not retail meat and cannot be sold by the cut. Packages are marked accordingly, as Maine requires.
If your intention is to sell beef by the cut, that requires an inspected plant instead. Say so when you call and the shop can tell you straight away whether what you want is something it can do.
What it costs
Current processing fees
- Harvest fee
- $100
- Rendering fee
- $25
- Processing
- $1.10/lb hanging weight
- Shaved steak
- $5/lb
- Patties
- $1/lb, 10 lb minimum
Prices here, and any estimate a cut sheet works out from them, are for planning and can change. Nothing you fill in online sets a price or places an order — the shop confirms current pricing and the actual processing total when your instructions are finalized in person. The full option list and fees are on the beef cut sheet.
Worth asking when you call
Several details depend on the animal, the season and how the shop is running that week, so they are not published here. Ask about them directly:
- Current lead time and which processing dates are open
- How the animal should be delivered, and when
- How the work is priced, and whether a deposit is needed
- How your meat will be packaged
- When to come in with your cut sheet
- How and when to collect