When an Anthropology MA Sells Meat at a Slaughterhouse
“Complaints and mishaps pile up every early morning. Yet I choose to switch off my phone and bury myself in sleep: they are never serious enough to drive clients away or push the slaughterhouse into bankruptcy. They simply keep turning up at their usual time each day, keeping our routines turning exactly as before.”
By the numbers, the facility is thoroughly modern: it covers more than a hundred mu, is backed by an investment of over one hundred million yuan, and houses trading and quarantine zones for cattle, sheep, and live poultry, alongside a state-of-the-art production floor that integrates slaughtering, chilling and ageing, carcass breakdown, and cold storage.
Yet the moment I stepped out of the car on my first visit, the pungent smell of cow dung hauled me right out of my daydreams. Despite boasting an industry-leading production line, I quickly realised that in practice the slaughterhouse was painfully short of the team and managerial know-how needed to run large-scale production and sales. On top of that, a highly fragmented customer base meant that logistics were constantly bogged down by a stream of petty, recurring snags.
I would sometimes wince at my aunt’s apparently glacial efficiency—problems that could be solved with a few messages online were instead tackled in person, requiring a full day’s drive of several hundred kilometres. Then again, I was frequently humbled by the cut-throat machinations of local business networks. Reluctantly, I had to concede that my aunt had long since honed a remarkably nimble, street-smart pragmatism that far exceeded my understanding.
In our cultural lexicon, a whole spectrum of terms exists to describe this trait, varying by perspective: calculating, shrewd, deceitful, cunning… Yet each time I viewed this ability through a different lens, I was ultimately reflecting my own mindset. Nineteen years of systematic, formal education were being shattered by the raw, unfiltered realities of lived experience.
I. Getting to Know a Cow
First, I had to learn how a cow is broken down into its various cuts: once a live animal has been skinned and its head, tail, legs, and offal removed, it is split down the spine to form a standard half-carcass. This is then deboned and divided into seven primal sections: the hind leg, loin, belly, brisket, rib, shoulder and neck, and foreleg. Each of these seven sections can then be broken down further into more specific cuts. For example, the hind leg can be subdivided into the knuckle, silverside, and shank. The sirloin and fillet steaks commonly served in Western restaurants are, in fact, simply the striploin (known locally as diaolong) and the tenderloin.
Fresh beef sales at the plant are broadly split into two categories: wholesale carcases and retail cuts. The smallest wholesale unit is a half-carcass, averaging 24 yuan per jin. Retail cuts are priced individually depending on the part: brisket costs 24 yuan per jin, whereas ribeye (diaolong) goes for 37 yuan per jin.
The shank (particularly the ‘coin shank’) tends to be the priciest retail cut, typically purchased for slow-braising. Ribeye and loin follow, favoured for pan-frying, hot pot or grilling. The bull’s penis, however, sits at the very top of the price scale, with only one available per animal. Several meat traders have told me that customers frequently need to arrange orders days in advance to guarantee they get hold of one.
The slaughterhouse my aunt runs primarily supplies local supermarkets and independent butchers, though it occasionally bids on tenders to secure catering contracts for government departments or schools. These clients share one common characteristic: they purchase in bulk, which makes processing their orders comparatively straightforward.
Yet even with high-volume clients, the slaughterhouse’s production schedule frequently runs into snags. The yield of specific cuts per animal is strictly fixed: each animal yields just two ribeyes, making supply low and prices high. If ten animals are processed on a given evening and eight are sold as wholesale half-carcasses, that leaves only four ribeyes from the remaining two animals for retail sale.
If three customers on the same evening each place an order for two extra ribeyes, one request is inevitably left unfulfilled. So whose order do you have to turn down?
II. The Highly Sought-After Strip Loin and the Demanding Customers
Our first transaction nearly ended in disaster before it had properly begun. He placed an order for a whole carcass plus an additional top sirloin. I was elated; it was my very first sale. The moment his message came through, I relayed it to the processing floor. It was past ten that evening, yet I decided to drive down to the workshop anyway, keen to personally oversee the butchering, weighing, and dispatch. Midway there, however, the floor suddenly informed me there were no extra top sirloins left for the night. I relayed this to Mr Wang. Before my car had even come to a halt, his call came through, furious: “You’re telling me there’s no top sirloin now? What am I supposed to supply my customers with tomorrow?”
I was equally frustrated. On the floor, meat is allocated strictly by the order of booking, and Mr Wang’s request had likely slipped too far down the queue, leaving no top sirloins to spare. Despite my explanation, his temper didn’t cool. He bluntly stated he was cancelling the whole carcass order for the night and would source it from another plant instead. Panic set in; completely at a loss, I stammered through a call to the floor supervisor. Rather than share my distress, he sounded entirely indifferent, almost reassuring me: “Don’t worry about it. If he walks, he walks. He’s hardly a premium client. He knows full well that top sirloins are in short supply and difficult to source.” At the time, I had no grasp of what constituted a “premium client.” I found the supervisor’s remarks baffling, convinced that customers should never be treated differently based on the size of their order.
In the end, Mr Wang did place the order. After we hung up, I fired off a WeChat message, carefully outlining the situation and offering a sincere apology. Not long after, he phoned back to confirm the whole carcass order anyway. Given it was our first venture together, he didn’t want to make things awkward for me, and he said he would simply source the top sirloin elsewhere.
Abattoirs typically begin slaughter between eight and nine in the evening, running until about one in the morning. The earlier customers submit their orders, the more certain they are of having their requirements met. Clients are well aware of this logic, but the realities of the trade rarely allow for it. Butchers like Mr Wang often double as suppliers for local restaurants, and proprietors might not confirm their requirements until eight or nine that same evening, by which point Mr Wang is forced to rush his order to us. As these deadlines cascade, workplace friction inevitably mounts. An abattoir, after all, will never slaughter an extra head of cattle simply to secure a single side of top sirloin.
When conflicts arise, the resolution sometimes comes from the client compromising, as Mr Wang did by sourcing the extra top sirloin elsewhere. Other times, the pressure is simply passed straight back to the abattoir staff. On one occasion, Mr Wang placed his extra top sirloin order early, and I promptly relayed it to the stock allocator. Yet by evening, the allocator informed me there was no top sirloin left for him. I felt my stomach drop. Judging by the order sequence in the WeChat group, there was no way Mr Wang’s request should have been overlooked. I rushed to the floor and discovered that a client of another sales rep had scooped up every spare top sirloin for the night. Why was the standard allocation protocol suddenly being ignored? I argued my case firmly, but to no avail. With little choice, I phoned my aunt to lodge a complaint. Shortly after, the other sales rep strolled over and said, “Oh, we can let one go your way, we can let one go.” It came across as a reluctant concession, leaving me thoroughly baffled. A little while later, my aunt messaged me, advising me not to be so rigid. Work is exhausting, she noted, but I needed to learn how to navigate situations with flexibility.
The protocol for sequential allocation had been instituted by them, and they were the same people insisting on its strict enforcement. How, then, did my insistence on upholding that very rule at a crucial moment suddenly become a personal flaw? Why should the needs of major accounts take precedence while smaller clients could be casually dismissed? The injustice of it all gnawed at me until a sales crisis eventually laid bare the true meaning of their so-called “premium clients.” One night, the abattoir was left with roughly twenty unsold top sirloins and needed to offload them urgently. The managing director broadcast a message to the team, urging everyone to scramble for buyers. I reached out to my network of retail butchers, but none were willing to gamble on taking an extra piece on short notice, rightly fearing the stock would be left rotting in their freezers. My aunt, however, made just a few calls and shifted the majority of the stock. Most of it was absorbed by accounts that typically maintain high demand. Their customer base was vast and their daily turnover substantial; they could easily absorb a surplus of top sirloins without breaking a sweat.
Different clients possess vastly different capacities to absorb risk. Only then did the advice to “not be so rigid” finally click. It was not about abandoning principles, but about avoiding burning any bridges; keep a degree of flexibility, and both buyer and seller will find it easier to continue working together down the line. From that point on, whenever a client approached me with an order for specific cuts, I would no longer make immediate promises. I always ensured I had absolute confirmation from the floor before committing to anything.
III. Before going to sleep, I switch off my phone
Take Boss Wang as an example. His butcher shop prides itself on raising and slaughtering its own livestock, guaranteeing fresh, unwatered meat. He has mentioned more than once, with real pride, that many customers specifically shop with him for this very reason. So when we first partnered up, he asked me to simply drop the deliveries at the expressway exit around 4 a.m. He didn’t want his competitors to find out that, alongside his own slaughter operations, he also sourced meat from our slaughterhouse. The county town was too small for secrets to keep; he worried rivals would spill the beans to local customers.
This highlights a persistent tension within the fresh meat industry. Consumers naturally gravitate towards butchers like Boss Wang, yet private slaughter operations are difficult to regulate. If the owner lacks scruples, it often leads to food safety issues like watered-down or drug-treated beef. In 2021, Sichuan Province revised its Regulations on the Administration of Pig Slaughter, explicitly stating that cattle and sheep slaughter would be governed by the same rules. The regulations mandate centralised, designated slaughterhouses, compulsory quarantine certificates, and prohibit any entity or individual from slaughtering cattle for sale outside these designated sites, with a specific focus on cracking down on illegal private slaughter. Livestock slaughtered by farmers are strictly for personal consumption and are not permitted to enter the commercial market.
As a result, Boss Wang had to maintain the facade of a self-sufficient operation while quietly sourcing stock from us. Market inspections weren’t carried out with strict consistency every day, which left him some room to manoeuvre. Sometimes, after slaughtering two cows himself, he’d find he was short on certain cuts and would place an order with me. Other times, he’d simply be too exhausted from the slaughterwork and want a break, and he’d reach out. The slaughterhouse issues a quarantine certificate for every order, and armed with these documents, he was more than equipped to handle market inspections— even if the dates didn’t perfectly align, they would never be far apart.
The problem was that we had nearly ten customers in Z County sourcing from our slaughterhouse simultaneously. By the time we had loaded the truck and were ready to set off, it was already past 3 a.m., meaning we wouldn’t reach Z County until close to 5 a.m. Boss Wang wanted his delivery at the expressway exit around 4 a.m., while another client insisted the goods had to arrive at his shop by 5 a.m. One was in the East Gate market, another in the West Gate market… After each customer received their delivery, unloading, checking the weight, and signing off would take another ten minutes or so. In reality, these scattered demands were fundamentally irreconcilable.
Here we go again, right on schedule. By 4 a.m., with the delivery truck already on the road, I’d just gotten home, washed up, and slipped into bed. Exhausted as I was, the mere thought of the incoming barrage of messages would keep me awake. Then, at roughly 5 a.m., give or take, the WeChat notification sounds or my phone ringtone would inevitably start.
“It’s nearly five. Why hasn’t the delivery arrived yet? I’m losing my mind here.”
“I specifically ordered two extra striploins (diaolong), why is there only one? How am I supposed to face my customers today!”
“I clearly said I only wanted a whole cow weighing around 175kg, and you’ve brought over 200kg. How am I supposed to sell it all in this heat? Just throwing deliveries around willy-nilly. Honestly.”
At first, I replied to every single message promptly, calming the customers down before immediately relaying their concerns to the production floor. But gradually, as I grew accustomed to this kind of interaction, I learned to turn off my phone before bed, setting only an 8 a.m. alarm. After a hard-fought night’s sleep, I’d drag myself out of bed, bleary-eyed, to tackle the dozens of messages and missed calls all at once.
It wasn’t out of irresponsibility, but rather a realisation that for the customers, the production team, and myself, these issues had become background noise. They were nowhere near severe enough to sever business ties or sink the slaughterhouse. They simply appeared on schedule each day, keeping the wheels turning as usual. Over time, this daily grind eroded the severity of the issues, quietly numbing our senses to them.
IV. Leaving the Slaughterhouse, Continuing to Eat Meat
Before I began my internship at the slaughterhouse, I was a recent graduate with a master’s degree in anthropology. Through an experience closely mirroring Timothy’s, I arrived at a very similar understanding.
Standing in the spotlessly cleaned slaughterhouse each day, you would see no trace of bloodshed. Yet scent does not lie. The pungent, reeking mixture of blood and excrement permeates every corner of the space. On occasions, when crossing paths with workers during the day, their odour would be overwhelming – a detail Timothy’s book accounts for: workers tasked with cutting open stomachs are often sprayed with their contents, leaving them with a lingering stench even after a shower. It also reminded me of the ‘class smell’ depicted in the South Korean film *Parasite*.
As for myself, returning home in the middle of the night, the clothes I took off would carry a heavy reek of blood. I wouldn’t notice it on the processing floor – I had become so accustomed to these smells that I was practically one with them. But once I got home, had a shower, and went to do the washing, the sudden whiff would make me feel sick. More than once, I nearly threw up.
Had it not been for this opportunity extended by a relative, I, like most people, would likely never have come into contact with the slaughterhouse trade. This systematic, relentless, and vast industrialised killing operates almost entirely out of public view. So when my aunt invited me, I was thrilled. It felt like a rare chance to step inside an industry that intimately affects everyone, yet remains largely unknown to the general public.
Yet actually immersing myself in the trade and seeing how each stage operates proved to be a deeply exhausting experience. The near-reversed day-night schedule left me with dark circles under my eyes that have yet to fade. The first time I watched a cow being slaughtered, it was the silent heifer that left me most on edge – she seemed accepting of her fate. Was she the chosen one, who would break her chains and go berserk, charging into everyone in the room? Later, when showing clients around the workshop, I just wanted to rush through the introductions – here is the slaughter section, there is the cooling room, every animal is slaughtered fresh, free from water and drug injection – and then go home and sleep. I was completely drained. Apart from that heifer, I cannot recall what any of the other slaughtered cows looked like.
By then, I had grown just as numb as the workers Timothy describes. I hadn’t even lifted a knife; the mere reversal of day and night was already sapping my strength. Moreover, no stage of this industry is easy. Raising cattle, slaughtering, butchering, and selling meat – these are jobs none of my peers would ever take up. I remember a meal with Boss Wang where I casually mentioned I had a postgraduate degree. He looked utterly baffled and asked, “You’ve got a master’s degree and you’re here selling meat? What on earth are you doing here?” I told him a relative had invited me. He nodded thoughtfully. “You’ve got someone showing you the ropes, then. That’s alright. Work hard – this line of work is still very profitable.” I thought to myself: as soon as I’d learned enough, I was leaving. Not even ten million would make me stay.
I wasn’t leaving out of pity, but out of exhaustion and a need to distance myself from the slaughter. When ‘progress’ depends on concealing rather than eradicating violence, morality is merely an illusion of complicity. I had assumed that watching the cows being killed would turn me into a steadfast vegetarian. Instead, the more familiar I became with it, the more my go-to gift became fresh, quality meat bought straight from the facility – it was significantly cheaper than shop-bought, and I could personally vouch for its quality. I even found myself able to assess meat quality when dining out, occasionally venting to restaurant staff: “This absolutely isn’t freshly sliced beef. It doesn’t even curl when it hits the pan.”
Editor: 熊阿姨