75. Butchers

In the Northern California city of San Rafael, inside a warehouse full of giant walk-in freezers, you’ll find rounds, flanks, chucks, and loins in various stages of aging. Workers use vertical bandsaws to trim hanger steaks and ribeyes. “We’re not generally speaking a Tuesday night dinner,” says Brian Flannery. “We’re an anniversary, a birthday, a holiday, a celebration when it’s natural to get a big steak.” Brian and his daughter Katie run Flannery Beef, a butcher shop and meat distributor that supplies high-end steaks to more than 400 restaurants across the country—and, increasingly, to home customers through e-commerce. Turning a 1,400-pound cow into an edible and economically viable product is more challenging than it may appear. “Anybody can pick up a knife,” Brian says, “but people that can do it correctly are not easy to find.”

The hourglass of American beef