A refreshing and resounding YES. We take this question and this part of processing your wild game harvests with upmost importance. All steaks, roasts, jerky, and trim for ground burger or any other ground products like summer sausage exceeding 50lbs belong exclusively to the animal you brought through our doors.

Given the massive volume of customer orders combined with our high capacity processing equipment, we have to combine quantities of ground trim meat for burger or other products like summer sausage less than 50lbs to maximize workflow/production efficiency.

However, this will NEVER occur without your permission or acknowledgement. We adhere strictly to standards established per the Utah Administrative Code: R70-530-3 which outlines best practices for co-mingled wild game meat:

(A) A wild game processor may commingle wild game products under the following conditions: (a) wild game trim may be commingled to make a batch of jerky or other processed product with trim derived from the same season; .... (c) the processor shall maintain a record of each batch of ground meat intended for each batch of product that includes a tag ID number for each batch;.... (e) each customer shall receive a finished product that contains a portion of meat derived from their animal; and (f) the processor shall obtain a signed disclosure and consent document for each customer that includes the Tag ID number.

The meat we use for ground products such as burger or summer sausage less than 50lbs is meticulously inspected for cleanliness and quality. Anything killed more than 3 days prior to arrival will not be allowed to be mixed.

And finally, if you do not want your meat co-mingled, it won't be. This is as important to you as it is to us as hunters ourselves.

We fully understand that your back and legs and even your heart can tell a different story than what is sometimes perceived regarding how much meat there is (or isn't) when picking it up after we've cut and wrapped it. As hunters ourselves we have also gone to the lengths of harvesting a trophy only to be disappointed with the results from butchers of the past.

At pickup, we feel it is our obligation and responsibility to provide a detailed, and fully transparent invoice breaking down the finished outputted weights of your processed meat to include itemized products like steaks, roasts, backstraps, tenderloins, etc along with the weights of meat as we received it.

Beginning with our very first animal from our initial season and with every animal from every season after, (having already surpassed thousands total), we collect and analyze the differences in output weight from received weight from every customer. We do this to know, with concrete assuredness through factual statistics, our capacities and thresholds as well as how and where we can improve as professional meat processors. This is not a hobby nor casual side hustle and we hold ourselves accountable to the highest levels of standards.

Through team and individual training and putting various SOPs into practice I have trust in those we employ as cutters, breakers, wrappers, and culinary specialists to fulfill their duties to the best of their abilities to maximize your meat yields.

There are many more variables that affect butchered wild game meat than butchered domestic carcasses. Because we are dedicated wild game processors, we accept wild game meat boned-out, in quarters, whole, or with or without the hide. We consider the many potential locations, circumstances, weather, weapons, seasons, shot placement, transportation, handling, field dressing, and many other ways the meat is affected. What we are most concerned with are ingesta and stomach matter, fecal materials, milk, and bullet and bone fragmentation. These are potentially the worst sources of bacteria and harmful pathogens. Kinetic energy from bullet and arrow impacts also form "bloodshot" which is the jelly-like blood clotting along with other protein fluid and water (myoglobin) that pool under the skin and throughout the muscles. This and other bruising have to be removed to prevent spoilage.

In order for us to provide safe and quality meat products back to you as a respected customer, we have to, often generously, cut away the affected and damaged areas from the carcass which can greatly impact meat yield.

TLDR Version: We respect you as a customer and at times we have to be heavy-handed in our cutting to do it right and to keep the meat as safe and delicious as possible. Please trust us to take care of your meat and that we strive to get you back as much as possible EVERY time!

I ask myself this same question every day. Not about you, about me.