Anne Bays, the “Butcher Babe,” hard at work in Moonlight Meat Shop
Hooray for the opening of Moonlight Meat Shop on Main Street in Williamsburg, Kentucky! This delightful business, in the newly constructed Marketplace on Main & Third, is a perfect one-stop location to buy local foods.
Owner Anne Bays with some peppers stuffed with sausage and cheese
In our part of the country, large-scale agriculture is impractical, but there are plenty of small farmers who raise hogs and cows amongst the mountains. Their animals are well cared-for, living good lives and grazing freely on grass. This is a far-cry from the giant agribusiness model that involves lots of antibiotics and packing animals into feed-lots. But many small-scale farmers struggle to sell their meat because the hold-up is in meat processing. And that is where Moonlight Meat really shines.
The new shop is full of fun and beautiful details.
Behind the beautiful storefront is a meat-processing facility further out in the county. This is a USDA-inspected facility that can process meat for farmers to eat or to sell. They can also process deer, turkey, elk, and whatever else hunters can harvest. They also process and source meat for customers like you and me to walk in and purchase. We can feel good about the food we are feeding our family, but even more we are supporting small farmers and supporting local food supply chains.
Anne and team hard at work at Moonlight Meat Processing, Inc., making sure the cuts of meat are perfect.
But not only that, in a world in which meat packing plants are infamous for unsafe work conditions, the owner of Moonlight Meat, Anne Bays, sets a completely different standard. When you are around her, you see how closely she works with her staff, which is more like a big family. Being USDA approved is an incredibly difficult process, with lots of paperwork and constant testing to meet rigorous federal guidelines. And as a woman in the meat-processing industry, she makes it happen. Sourcing the meat, training and employing a whole staff, and meeting USDA guidelines is serious work, but here is one small-scale entrepreneur that makes it happen, to the benefit of her community.
When you come to Moonlight’s new location in Downtown Williamsbug, you will see how she is also helping a variety of small producers and farmers. Through State Farm they are a Certified Roadside Stand, so they can sell honey, jam, and other products that are produced at small scale. She sells a variety of items that are labeled Kentucky Proud. You can pick up biscuit or pancake mix that was milled nearby at Weisenberger Mill, or Wildcat Mountain Cheese that was produced in Laurel County. I also picked up some chocolate cherry jam and apple butter from Friends Drift Inn, along with eggs and fresh bacon. I have my eye on some pickles and barbeque sauce, but I didn’t want to buy up the entire store on their first day.
The kabobs we had for dinner
Fresh ground beef at Moonlight Meat Shop on Main Street in Williamsburg
For me, this represents a quiet revolution in the way my family eats. For the first time, I am able to stop by a neighborhood store to pick up fresh, healthy items for dinner that night, all while supporting local farmers and producers. In fact, I have some of her beef and chicken kabobs in the oven right now, which I’ll serve with a watermelon we grew ourselves. Isn’t this how we all wish we could feed our families? I am so grateful to Anne and her team at Moonlight for making this a reality, and I am so excited to be a regular customer.
So many good products can be found!
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Sky and Geoff Marietta are passionate about rebuilding Main Street businesses in Appalachian Kentucky. Look for some of our blog posts below, or find out more about our start here.
