The world’s best apprentice butcher is usually out of sight in a store in Melbourne’s south-east, hauling carcasses from a fridge and crafting specialised cuts as customers peruse their local shopping strip.
But this month, 23-year-old Matt Tyquin was under bright lights and on panoramic screens slicing through rump and loin in a Californian stadium, usually the domain of Sacramento NBA games and pop music superstars, at what’s dubbed the “Olympics for meat”.
Matt Tyquin, world champion apprentice butcher of the year, after returning to Australia at Ashburton Meats.Credit:Darrian Traynor
“You felt like you were a professional player going out to a game,” said Tyquin, who returned to Australia this week as the nation’s first apprentice to win the World Butchers’ Challenge.
In an economy where butchers are among trade-based professions experiencing skills shortages, Tyquin sees his pathway into butchery as unusual, falling into the profession by chance when his dad saw a cleaning hand job going at the family’s local Ashburton Butchers.
There, he staffed tills after school and enjoyed the physical exertion and teamwork after a football injury kept him from weekend sport.
He enrolled in a biomedicine degree with aspirations to become a microbiologist. But the harder he studied, the more obvious it became that it was the practical lab work – not time spent at a desk – that had drawn him to science.
Matt Tyquin at the World Butchers’ Challenge in Sacramento, California.
“I got the piece of paper and then started my apprenticeship two weeks later,” Tyquin said. “I just wanted to finish that degree. I’m a big believer in finishing what I start but using my hands to create things is what brings me joy.”
Just over a year into the apprenticeship, he qualified through TAFE to be one of two Australian apprentices to compete in the world challenge. Australian butchers were also runners-up in the young butcher of the year and open events.
Judges gave apprentices 2½ hours to turn five primitive cuts (a large piece of the carcass) into dozens of products, showing off their craftsmanship in a trade shifting to add value to traditional meat cuts to compete with chain stores and utilise more of the animal carcass.
Tyquin made pork fillet sushi, an Australian-style parcel of beef schnitzel wrapped around mince and beetroot, and US-inspired barbecue recipes.
“My whole body went numb,” he said, when asked to recall his win.
His employer Paul Klooster, whose Ashburton butchery has received about 100 titles including two further apprentices’ statewide awards, said he was “absolutely blown away” to have the world’s best apprentice working at the store.
“He makes my job feel like it’s not work,” Klooster said.
The Australian Meat Industry Council said its members, on average, were short four butchers in each store nationally.
“[This is a] huge concern that needs a proper review within the school and TAFE system,” council chief Patrick Hutchinson said.
The World Butchers’ Challenge began as a contest between Australia and New Zealand in 2011 to elevate the image of butchers. It has grown into an international competition, also visiting Ireland and England.
“There is a massive skill shortage, basically, globally” the competition’s chair Rob Slater said, with the notable exemption of France. “It is an exciting profession to be involved in and it can be very rewarding and take you to many places.”
While Tyquin has considered one day owning a store or pursuing meat science, he said for the moment he simply aspired to be seen as “the young bloke at the local butcher store” in a profession that required problem-solving, physical labour and employers who valued the next generation.
“Butchering now I think is evolving into something that’s almost like being a chef,” he said.
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