CleavePick Your
Cut.
Three tracks. One block. Tell us where you're starting.
From carcass to confidence.
Watch mastery unfold before you ever pick up a knife.
The whole animal arrives.
A 90-kg side of beef hits the block. You circle it. You feel the weight of what you're about to learn. The instructor names every primal in sixty seconds — shoulder, rib, loin, round — and hands you a boning knife.
Primals come apart.
The seam knife finds the natural lines between muscles. You learn that meat has a logic — follow the fascia, follow the fat. The carcass divides into seven primals and suddenly the blueprint makes sense.
Subprimals. Seaming. Precision.
The chuck breaks into six muscles. Each one has a name, a purpose, a best cooking method. You seam your first shoulder and find the flat-iron hiding inside. This is where confidence begins.
Retail cuts. Portioning. Speed.
You're cutting steaks at consistent weight within 5 grams. The bandsaw is your friend. You price a case, label it, wrap it. The gap between craft and commerce disappears.
Find the right fit for where you are.
6-Week Fundamentals
per student
Every primal. Every species. Real technique.
- Beef, pork, lamb, and poultry
- Seaming, boning, and portioning
- Pricing, yield, and waste management
- Cold-chain handling and food safety
- Final project: full carcass breakdown
Taught by people who've done the work.
Marcus Holt
Head Butcher & Founder
Third-generation butcher. Trained under his grandfather in rural Vermont, spent eight years at a whole-animal restaurant program in Portland before opening Cleave.
Diana Reyes
Pork & Lamb Specialist
Former head butcher at a heritage pork farm in the Hudson Valley. Obsessed with whole-hog cookery and the six different ways to break a lamb shoulder.
340+
Students trained
92%
Complete their track
78%
Change how they cook or work within 60 days
"I came in not knowing a primal from a subprimal. By week four I was breaking down a full chuck without notes. Marcus doesn't let you coast."
Priya Mehta
Now runs a weekend butchery pop-up
"I could cook a perfect ribeye blind. But debone a shoulder? Not a chance. Cleave fixed that in six weeks. My menu changed overnight."
James Okafor
Executive Chef, The Larder Room
"Twelve weeks felt fast. I walked out with a job offer from the shop I did my externship at. The math on the investment took about thirty seconds."
Caitlin Brauer
Junior Butcher, Ridgeline Provisions
One step from the block.
No deposit. We'll confirm your spot and follow up with everything you need.
"The block doesn't care what you knew yesterday. Show up."
— Marcus Holt, Head ButcherFree Beef Cut Chart
PDF · Printable · A3
Every primal, every subprimal, every retail cut — labelled and mapped. Yours free.