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Meet Jessica S Bobitsky of Wheat Ridge Poultry & Meats in Wheat Ridge – West of Denver

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica S Bobitsky.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Wheat Ridge Poultry was founded in 1942 as Ridge Valley Poultry, 27 years before the City of Wheat Ridge was founded. Ridge Valley was located in the heart of a farming community and offered fresh chickens, turkey, and eggs.

In the early 1960s, the farm was modified into a shopping center and parking lot and once the city of Wheat Ridge was founded our name was changed to Wheat Ridge Poultry & Meats and we began offering a variety of fresh cut meats as well as wild game processing.

Since the 1960s, we have expanded our fresh cuts to include local beef, pork and exotic meats such as elk, yak, kangaroo and wild boar.

We have been a family owned and operated business since 1942. I am a member of the third family to own and operate Wheat Ridge Poultry.

We have been voted best butcher in Wheat Ridge and Lakewood since 2015; won the business of the year in 2017 from the Wheat Ridge Business Association; won best customer service in Wheat Ridge in 2019.

We love our neighbors and community! We have donated time and money to local causes and charities to help make Wheat Ridge an even better place to be.

We are committed to food safety and are opening a new training facility to give our staff bigger hands-on training experience. We are proud to have passed the last four health inspections with zero infractions and have implemented many food safety plans that are not yet required by the health department. Some of these include color-coded cleaning equipment, automatic hand washing stations, hazard analysis plans and mandatory health and safety training.

We are committed to educating our customers and offer private butchering classes.

We work with many local ranchers and farmers to ensure we get the freshest, high-quality products available. We are whole animal butchers which means we bring the whole animal in and butcher it in-house – this allows us to offer cuts you might not find at other butcher shops.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing. In July 2o15, we had an electrical fire that destroyed 3/4 of our building and forced the shutdown of operations for about one month. The fire was deemed to be the responsibility of the property owner. We reached an agreement with the building owner stating that they would rebuild what was lost in the fire. Unfortunately, the building owner took the insurance money and never rebuilt and then attempted to evict us because we wanted to abide by the contract that was signed. Thankfully, after nine months of court battles, we won damages and were able to stay in our location. However, we never had parts of our building replaced/rebuilt.

In Spring of 2018, Denver Water had all access to our location shut off to improve water lines. This construction lasted several months and nearly put us out of business. Luckily our community stepped in and helped us survive. Our business was down 85% and we had to lay off several members of our staff. Our staff even went and stood on the street corner with signs asking people to shop local and help save their jobs.

No matter what has come our way, we continue to make it through because of our dedicated staff, our family and friends and of course, our wonderfully supportive community.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Wheat Ridge Poultry & Meats – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
We are the third family to own and operate Wheat Ridge Poultry and Meats, Inc.

Since 2015, we have been voted best butcher in Wheat Ridge and Lakewood. We won the business of the year from the Wheat Ridge Business Association in 2017. We are listed in the United States Congressional Record for having won this award.

We have donated more than $15,000 to local schools and community groups and have volunteered more than 3,000 hours in our community.

We are committed to helping the butcher trade survive into the next generation which means we host local high school interns each year.

Wheat Ridge Poultry offers fresh cuts of beef, pork, and chicken daily. We offer a wide variety of farm-raised exotic meats and sausages such as yak steaks, ground kangaroo and wild boar blueberry sausage. We carry several local products in our pantry and freezer department and work with many local ranchers.

We offer weekly $25 meat bundle deals as well as other meat bundles that range from $24.99 to $299.99.

We produce and sell raw pet food and treats.

In 2018, we adopted a zero waste mission which led us into offering raw pet food as well as donating our scraps and inedible animal parts to the wolf sanctuary in Colorado Springs. We also supply meat, scraps, hides and animal parts to the Tigers at the Downtown Aquarium. We encourage our customers to recycle and reuse by offering a bag credit each time a customer brings in their own bag. We then match that bag credit and donate it to a non-profit organization that offers food and assistance to veterans in our community.

Each Thanksgiving and Christmas we adopt families in our community and give them a complete holiday dinner meal as well as toys and presents for the children.

We still use and operate many of the original pieces of equipment and have repurposed many to keep our past alive. In fact, the original owner and her daughter still shop with us.

We are very committed to helping our neighbors whenever we can and support and sponsor local events such as the chili cook-off at the annual Carnation Festival and fundraising nights for local schools.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We are excited to open our education center in the fall of 2019. This second location will allow our staff to have more hands-on training experience as well as expand our private butchering classes for customers and interns.

This location will also be used to create farm-to-table pop-up community gatherings where our customers can meet with local farmers and ranchers then enjoy the products we offer in our store prepared by a local chef.

Pricing:

  • Local Dry-Aged and Grass-Fed Beef $6.99/lb. to $16.99/lb.
  • Local Eggs and Milk $2.99 to $8.29
  • Jalapeno Bacon $6.99/lb.
  • Iowa Gold Pork $2.99 to $4.99/lb.
  • Ground Yak $9.99/lb.

Contact Info:


Image Credit:
Tess Powell Photography

Getting in touch: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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