- I have always worked kitchen jobs.

I also had always been really fascinated with the meat industry kind of from a distance.

[slicing machine whirring] So when I was sort of looking to stay in food but try to figure out a way to sort of pivot into something else, that's where I sort of got the idea that like maybe getting into butchering would be a cool thing to do.

My name is Anna Gibala.

I am the owner of Moonbelly Meat Company and my home is Durham, North Carolina.

[upbeat music] I've got these little petite hams that I netted and tied up and now I'm just throwing 'em on [indistinct], and they're gonna go into the smoker, and then they'll become ham.

[laughing] I grew up in North Carolina and my dad was really into hunting, and he would do all of the like processing and butchering of venison at home.

I have so many vivid memories growing up.

We had like a little jungle gym in the backyard that had monkey bars on it, and so he would use that as like to do like hanging butchery essentially and do all of the processing there.

In 2015 my partner and I moved to the Bay area and just sort of like the first job that I got when I was there was a whole animal butcher shop and sandwich shop.

So I started there on the line and had sort of expressed like, "I would love to learn" and they were very welcoming and like open to, you know, "If you wanna come in on your days off we'll teach you whatever you wanna learn."

I would go over there like once or twice a week and they would show me how to break pigs down, how to make sausage, and after about six months of doing that it ended up that they had a full-time position open up and then just continued to work on learning and trying to gain more experience within the meat industry.

I think I always sort of had in the back of my mind that it would be really cool to do something similar to that in Durham.

I just felt like networking-wise I knew the most people and it didn't seem like there was really something like that happening in Durham.

I also felt like from afar I kept seeing Durham pop up on all of these like foodie town or like lists of places that you didn't know have really great food scenes.

I think with all of those different components combined, it just felt like a good fit to do this here.

There's so many opportunities to get really creative with flavor profiles and just different spices and ingredients that you're using, that that was part of wanting to do my own thing.

So I think that's kind of what got the wheels turning of like, "But there's so many other cool things that we could be doing," and if I really wanna do those, I think I just have to do it on my own.

So yeah, that was sort of like the idea behind the concept.

The thing that I always find really cool about butchery is that essentially, like all of these different animals are the same, just on a different size scale.

So like a lamb chop is a pork chop is a rib eye, and that also applies to intestinal lining, and now we're just gonna get going with the stuffing.

[handle grinding] It's good to always go like a little bit on the looser side, too, because as we twist this into links, they're ultimately gonna get tighter but you can't make them looser.

Go on the looser end during this part.

[handle grinding] Lot of good noises.

[laughing] So Moonbelly is very rooted in the concept and practice of whole animal butchery.

I only work with pork right now to make different uniquely flavored sausages and charcuterie, bacon, hams, and to really hone into on the whole animal side of things, I try to make like dog treats out of the skin.

I'll use the bones for broth.

The belly skin I make pork rinds out of.

Just in terms of efficacy and really trying to focus on environmental sustainability, whole animal is sort of the way to go with that because you're utilizing as much of the animal as possible.

I think that oftentimes, especially with like smaller specialty butcher shops, it can feel a little bit of like an intimidating space.

You know, there's just certain cuts that you're not gonna be familiar with.

If you don't know, it can be really overwhelming.

Like if walking in like, "Well, where is the flat iron?

What's a velvet steak?

Like I've never heard of any of these."

Even like the marketing and branding with a lot of places, it's very intimidating, with like a cleaver.

Also like pretty male dominated as far as like the whole industry goes.

So I really wanted to be very conscious of that.

So hopefully that comes across like with even just like the name of the company, and yeah, having it not be in like a black and white, like here's a big cleaver and scary meat stuff.

[crowd and traffic mulling around] [crowd talking in background] I am probably gonna run outta bags today, oopsie.

Yeah, I'm really curious to see how busy it is today, just since it's supposed to be so nice out.

- [Customer] People are waiting.

Have you all been getting meat from her for a while.

- I specifically buy the pork rinds.

They are delicious.

And normally if we go the other route we miss out on the pork rinds.

So this is our first stop.

- I currently don't have any kind of like brick and mortar or storefront.

I'm only selling through the Durham Farmer's Market.

Interactions with customers at the farmer's market, people are definitely pretty engaging, and that's like my favorite part of all of it is to just really be able to talk through things with people, and sort of that's an opportunity to explain like the idea behind whole animal butchery and like why that's so important.

'Cause it all, yeah, it still kind of comes back to that idea of sustainability.

Welcome.

[laughing] I have aprons up here if y'all wanna grab one of those.

I teach classes here at the kitchen where I prep everything.

Right now I just do like a sausage making class.

Basically I'll try and coordinate, knowing that I have a class on a week that I'm also getting a pig delivery.

Typically the classes are like six to eight people.

and I really try to make it like as hands-on as possible.

So we, as a class will break down that shoulder pretty much from start to finish.

Like when people come in, it's skin on, bone in.

We fabricate it together, cut all of the trim together, grind everything, and then I'll have like a little spice kit meased out that we mix up together, and everyone gets a chance to get in on like the stuffing and twisting, and they get to take home a couple pounds of like the fresh sausage that we make in the class.

That's part of like what's most gratifying about this work is like receiving that feedback in real time of having people say like, "We made your Korean barbecue sausage last week and it was like my family's favorite thing that we ate all week."

Anything like that is just, all of the positive feedback just feels really good and kind of keeps things going.

I feel like when you get in a rut of like, "Why am I doing this?"

It feels good to hear that people are appreciating the work that you do is really important.

[strumming upbeat music]