Primal Supply Meats, which brought whole-animal butchery to the masses, announces it is closing

Primal Supply Meats, which helped revive the art of whole-animal butchery in Philadelphia seven years ago, is closing this month, breaking a direct link in the food chain, according to Heather Thomason, its founder.

In an email to customers, Thomason wrote that the company was “no longer able to continue operations in a sustainable way,” given “the mounting economic and social challenges that were set in motion by the pandemic more than three years ago.” She was not immediately available for comment.

She said Primal’s South Philadelphia and Brewerytown butcher shops will be open for business as usual, tentatively through May 19. After that, she said, Primal will continue to fulfill freezer orders online for pickup while supplies last.

Thomason was a graphic designer in Brooklyn when, through farmers, she became aware of what she called the broken supply chain for small local producers trying to raise meat. After learning the ropes at a farm in upstate Pennsylvania, and working for a butcher in California, she came to Philadelphia in 2014 to open a butcher counter inside Kensington Quarters restaurant in Fishtown.

Two years later, she left to open Primal “with the mission to build a local supply chain connecting local farmers to consumers, and to serve the Philadelphia region with sustainably raised meats,” she wrote.

» READ MORE: From 2017: Who is Heather Thomason of Primal Supply Meats

Working initially from a facility in Yeadon, Delaware County, she contracted with local farmers and slaughterhouses, from which she brought locally sourced, traceable, sustainable meats to a who’s who of the Philadelphia food community. Home cooks could pick up weekly “butcher’s club” CSA orders at a few locations.

From there, Primal opened a retail shop on East Passyunk Avenue across from the Singing Fountain and added a short-lived shop in Fishtown and a main facility in Brewerytown with an attached shop.

“It just sucks,” said chef Marc Vetri, who invested in Primal 4½ years ago after informally consulting with Thomason. On Friday, he called her “a great person who had a great vision, but unfortunately sometimes things don’t always go as planned.”