BRIDGETOWN, N.S. — The D’Aubin Family Meats shop is on the D’Aubin family’s small hobby farm.
In true family-business fashion, co-owners Ralph and Jennifer are joined full-time by their daughter Christie. Their three other children, Katelyn, Haley and Jacob have all had a hand in the shop as well, helping to raise animals, cut meat, work the cash, or whatever else needs doing. Jennifer’s brother works in the shop. So does Ralph’s sister. His cousin is also their accountant. They even have a dozen staff who aren’t related.
The business is located at 607 Granville St. in Bridgetown.
“The buy-in is there from all of our staff, even those that aren’t related. A person once said to me, ‘there’s a difference between doing a job and doing the job”, and that’s how I feel about our staff. That’s one way in which we’re really, really lucky,” says Jennifer.
Everyone needs to eat to live. But in 2020, not everyone needs to produce food in order to eat. It’s an arrangement that I’m comfortable with, since it is what permits me to earn my daily bread typing on a keyboard instead of doing the hard work people like Ralph do in order to keep me fed.
“It’s really my husband that the business is based around,” says Jennifer. “Close to 20 years ago he started working with a local butcher. He really took to it and then he started doing it more as a hobby for himself, just to earn a little extra cash at home.”
Ralph D’Aubin took a community college meat cutting course in 2000 and worked in the industry for a while. He tried working other jobs and driving trucks. But Ralph was still drawn to the butcher’s trade and the dream of one day being his own boss. For a few years the D’Aubins hesitated, unsure of how to take that step.
“I'm not sure what changed. About six or seven years ago, we said, ‘you know what? It’s time to either go for this or not,’ says Jennifer. “We had a friend who was business savvy. He crunched a few numbers and he said, ‘I think you guys could do this.’”
The D’Aubins qualified for a government self-employment program that partially funded them through their first year. Jennifer’s contract at the non-profit she was working at ended on a Thursday. By Saturday she was invited by a friend to a meeting with the goal of organizing a Bridgetown market. She left that meeting as president of the market.
“I don’t even know how that happened. That market’s no longer happening, but it did run for a few years,” says Jennifer. “We started selling our sausages there, and then we started selling our sausages at the Annapolis market. We still do. And we were selling them the Annapolis Valley Exhibition in Lawrencetown. We still do that too.”
The shop is a true all-in-one butcher shop. The animals are locally sourced from farms the D’Aubins have personally visited. They are slaughtered in the same building that houses the shop itself. Ralph oversees this part of the process. This is out of concern for sustainability, but also a recognition of the responsibility they have to the animals.
“The way that we frame it up is you say, ‘I’m going to give them a good life and I'm going to ease them into death as best as I can,’” says Jennifer. “Ralph still finds it a little challenging to do his own, but he still does his own. Our kids have always known this too. Our daughter had the goats and our son that raises the rabbits now. They’ve always known that this is what the animals are for.”
After butchering, the meat is hung to dry-age in the old style, in view of the shop floor. The family debated whether or not people would be shocked to see whole sides of beef, but ultimately it came down to a core philosophy.
“People should know that a steak or a pound of hamburger comes from a full side of beef,” says Jennifer. “There’s a couple individuals who don’t want to see that, which is fine, that’s totally their prerogative. But I think if you're going to eat meat, you should know where it comes from and how it’s done.”
There were early, uncertain days, with Ralph working until two in the morning before grabbing three hours of sleep and heading back out to work. Some nights the family would eat dinner out in the shop because it was their only chance to spend time together. As the business and their schedules stabilize, Jennifer believes the rewards have been worth the work.
“The best part has been seeing Ralph fulfill the dream that he had for a really long time. When you sit and you take the time to look around and see all the great people that you have working with you, and how far we’ve come from when we opened the doors five years ago,” says Jennifer. “That, and the community support. The people that come into our shop and that tell us how thankful they are that we’re there and how much they appreciate our products.”
