FORT Butcher
You can now purchase FORT Butcher’s 100 percent natural meats at Roy Pope’s Grocery. The gourmet grocery, which was established in 1943, sits at 2300 Merrick St., just off Camp Bowie.
The FORT Butcher team, founded by friends Chef Andrew Dilda, Stacey Sargent Cooper, and Don Canada Jr., wants to bring their customers a small ranch taste at grocery store prices.
Their "ranch to table" concept launched last May with monthly "meat drops" ― an attempt to keep prices affordable by cutting out the middleman and delivering product directly to the consumer.
You can now purchase FORT Butcher’s 100 percent natural meats at Roy Pope Grocery for added convenience. The gourmet grocery, which was established in 1943, sits at 2300 Merrick St., just off Camp Bowie.
The FORT Butcher team buys in large quantities, direct from the ranchers, so they’re able to keep costs low. They introduced themselves to the market by hosting meat drops to deliver pre-orders to their customers at local breweries. Those will now discontinue.
“You might say Roy Pope’s Grocery has become our permanent meat drop,” says Andrew Dilda. “Customers can even order online and have our meats delivered through Roy Pope delivery service.”
The concept began with an array of specialty meats. “Now, we are focused on our top three ― bison, elk and wagyu,” Dilda says. “While most wagyu cattle you’ll find in America are a cross-breed, at only about 51 percent wagyu … we have partnered with one of the first ranches to import, a nearly pure, black wagyu herd, from Japan,” he says. “The wagyu we have sourced have 99.6 percent verified DNA.”
All the meat Fort Butcher sources are what they call "never ever" meats, because the animals are raised without any added hormones, antibiotics or fast growth methods.
“We are focused on sustainability, and have been forging partnerships with ranchers who are working under our strict requirements,” co-founder Canada says. “We partner with ranches that tend to the care and handling of their animals, and ones that are bound to the preservation of the herd.”
While Fort Butcher will continue to make quality meats, convenient for their customers, they have recently branched out, adding Fort Supply Co. to their business model. “It is our commercial arm, providing our bison, elk and wagyu to local restaurants and suppliers,” Canada says. “We are also dedicated to helping our community ― a portion of sales benefits the Tarrant Area Food Bank.”