HOW IT ALL STARTED
The genesis for Black Market Butcher Shoppe was born in the break room at the AT&T telephone company. Twin brothers Chris and Jason Wright, along with their best friend John Edwards, played on the same Little League baseball team and had been working together at AT&T for 20 years.
On the side, they raised and sold small orders of beef, but they ran into a problem — they had to drive two hours each way to the nearest animal processing plant. Before work. Which meant they needed to be on the road at 4 am.
Word got out about the quality meats they were able to offer at remarkable pricing.
A coworker — who was also a Henry County magistrate — overheard their conversation one morning and told them about a program the Kentucky Agricultural Development Board was offering to fund a local processing plant. With the backing of the community and state, this small team of three was able to come together and a processing plant was built. It was called Trackside Butcher Shoppe, because it was located near a train track.
In 2015, Chris and John left their day jobs to get their hands dirty and live out their farming—and meat processing dream.
Soon, they were handling all the business they could take, but still more customers were making the drive to Campbellsburg, Kentucky to shop their small retail store.
To move beyond mere local notoriety, Chris, Jason, and John conceived an online butcher shop that could serve customers throughout the region.
And Black Market Butcher Shoppe was born.
FARMING FAMILY
The Black Market founders come from three generations of farming families and the Wright Family has ties to the financing of farmers in Trimble County. Chris and Jason’s great-grandfather was well known as a loan processor who would find a way to help the farmer. One story the brother’s often heard was of a soldier returned from war who could not repay his farm loan and their great-grandfather accepted his butcher block as compensation instead.
That same butcher block has been passed down for generations and now sits in their small retail store, Trackside Butcher Shoppe, in Campbellsburg, Kentucky.
AND NOW THE NEXT CHAPTER
After six years of providing some of the finest meat to their local community, Chris, Jason, and John are expanding their efforts to Black Market Butcher Shoppe so that they can deliver the same great-tasting meat to more customers.
