Is Back Home Butcher Shop Woke?

Company Overview

Back Home Butcher Shop is owned by E. Scott Gehman and his wife Jessica. Scott is a third-generation butcher—his family's knowledge of meat is a trade passed down across decades, embedded in decisions about how to select animals at the farm, age them properly, break them down precisely, and cut them according to the customer's specific request. The shop is located at 520 Main St. in Green Lane, Pennsylvania, a small town in Lancaster County where butchering and farming have been the foundation of the local economy for generations. The facility is USDA-certified, and Scott sources directly from local farmers who raise pasture-fed, hormone-free, and antibiotic-free livestock within a regional network of growers he trusts personally. The farmers know Scott personally, understand his standards, and raise animals to his specifications.

The product range is genuine butchery, not commodity processing: locally-raised beef, pork, and chicken dry-aged for 14 to 21 days—a process that develops flavor through enzymatic breakdown and moisture loss, concentrating the meat's taste and improving digestibility. Customers can order individual cuts, pre-made packages, sides of beef, or whole steers purchased directly from farms. Back Home does not pre-wrap meat in plastic in the industrial manner; they understand that different customers want different cuts from different parts of the animal. This is not the ground-and-wrapped commodity meat distributed through industrial supply chains by logistics companies optimizing for cost per pound and shelf-life. This is a craftsman who knows his suppliers by name, visits the farms to understand how animals are raised, selects animals that meet his standards, and cuts meat according to the customer's specific request for a dinner party or season of cooking.

While supermarket meat departments are sourcing commodity beef from feedlots in Texas and the Midwest, shipping it refrigerated across the country, and selling it pre-packaged in plastic from processors the customer will never meet, Scott Gehman is building relationships with local farmers within 50 miles, dry-aging meat in-house, and having conversations with customers about what they want to cook and how to prepare it properly. The difference is not price—Back Home is more expensive—but knowledge and accountability. You know where the animal came from, the name of the farm, how long it was aged, and can call Scott with questions about preparation.

ESG & Sustainability

Back Home Butcher Shop does not publish a corporate sustainability report or conduct third-party audits of supply chain practices. What it does instead is operate within a system that is, by default, more sustainable than industrial meat production. Pasture-raised animals require no antibiotics or growth hormones, reducing pharmaceutical waste and antibiotic resistance in waterways and soil. Local sourcing eliminates continent-spanning logistics and refrigerated truck transport that burns diesel fuel and generates carbon emissions. Dry-aging reduces waste by concentrating flavor rather than masking it with processing chemicals and nitrates. A butcher who sells whole animals and sides, rather than pre-packaged cuts, minimizes packaging and plastic waste—instead of 20 individually wrapped steaks, the customer gets a side of beef to butcher as needed. These practices are economical first and sustainable second—they are how meat was sold for centuries before industrial agriculture and factory farming concentrated production into mega-facilities.

DEI Programs

There are no diversity initiatives, unconscious bias trainings, or employee resource groups. Scott Gehman is a third-generation butcher who learned the trade from his family. The focus is meat quality, animal welfare, customer service, and knowledge transfer, not hiring narratives or demographic representation.

LGBTQ+ Advocacy

Back Home Butcher Shop does not engage in LGBTQ+ advocacy or Pride marketing. The business has no public statements on these topics and does not appear to view them as relevant to selling meat from local farms.

Political Activity

No corporate political contributions, no PAC involvement, no public statements on polarized issues. Back Home Butcher Shop is a meat shop in a rural Pennsylvania town. National politics are not part of the business model, and the shop operates according to traditional butchery and community values.

Consumer Impact

The impact is nutritional and economic. A customer buys meat that is raised without industrial antibiotics or hormones, aged properly to improve flavor and digestibility, and sourced from farms within a few dozen miles of the shop. The money goes directly to local farmers and a local business owner, supporting regional agriculture and employment. The customer knows the origin of the food—they can ask Scott which farm the beef came from, how long it was aged, and how to prepare it properly. A steak dry-aged for 21 days tastes different from supermarket meat because the aging concentrates flavor, develops complexity, and changes the texture to be more tender. This is the alternative to supermarket meat sold on price and convenience. For customers who value food sourcing, animal welfare, taste, and local economy, Back Home delivers all four.