Butcher Boy: A Cut Above

If you’ve ever driven in the area of Little Mack and Stephens, and wondered about Butcher Boy Meats -- Is it a shop, or is it a meat processing plant? -- you’re right on both accounts.

Butcher Boy has been there for decades, and in 2005 it was bought by a company with many years of heritage -- namely, Alexander & Hornung -- a name all too familiar for those with Polish or German heritage.

Whether you like brats sizzling on the grill, a holiday ham, or simply want some Polish sausage to season a recipe, chances are you've quite likely enjoyed one of the many products coming out of the the Butcher Boy factory.

Bernie Polen is president and he grew up in the business. His family started Alexander & Hornung, which outgrew its Detroit location of 60 years, at Harper and Gratiot -- and they quickly sealed the deal to acquire the St. Clair Shores location.

They’ve grown at the new site, too, doubling their cooking capacity and expanding by 8,500 square feet, to 100,000 square feet. They've added ovens, refrigeration and mechanical units, and beginning in 2008 they started utilizing positive pressure (an added purity measure) to make a safer product with less risk of contamination.

Butcher Boy gets the raw product delivered fresh each day and makes meat magic, turning it into mostly ready-to-eat products.

Pre-cooked, heat-and-eat products “are the wave of the future,” Polen says, since they’re safer and these days consumers are so busy. While the technology may be relatively recent, the recipes are very much the same, Polen says, so people can still enjoy the flavors they grew up with -- just now there are no filler, binders or MSG added to the mix.

Admittedly the site is not quite geared toward consumers, Polen says. There are a few visitor parking spots off the Stephens entrance, and the public is welcome to stop and shop. People can pick up bacon, bratwurst, Hunter sausage, hot dogs, Weisswurst, Knockwurst, Polish sausage, liverwurst and more from a cooler set up inside. Ask for a price list and you’ll see dozens of items available for purchase, and at a considerable discount since they're sold at wholesale cost -- most are listed at no more than $6 a pound, and many for less.

Of course, if it’s too out of the way to shop at Butcher Boy -- they do follow early bird hours, open from 6 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday -- their products can be found all over town, at and , for example. But they can be bought all over the country, too, and even in Canada.

Some of the brands Butcher Boy produces include Amish Pride, Brookside Foods, Virginia Davis, Meat King, Farmer Pete, Hiller’s spiral hams -- though, Polen says “Alexander & Hornung is probably No. 1 of our brands.” They also produce a lot of private label brands, too.

And, if you’re wondering if they’re connected to the Butcher Boy location in Warren, Polen says that one is a customer and not a partner or affiliate.

Butcher Boy is located at 20643 Stephens, St. Clair Shores. Reach them at 586-771-9880. To learn more, including about its products and where to purchase them, visit http://alexanderhornung.com/