Butcher launches sustainable sausage company
BY EMILY DAVENPORT
Cara Nicoletti has been in
the meat industry for her entire
life. The fourth-generation
butcher’s grandfather,
Seymour Salett, ran Salett’s
butcher shop for 60 years, and
Nicoletti herself has worked in
shops such as the Meat Hook
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Nicoletti naturally gravitated
towards whole-meat
butchering. In her time working
in butcher shops, she said
she noticed that customers
were coming back day after
day to buy meat, which she
found to be unsustainable.
“It didn’t seem like a sustainable
way to eat for me,”
said Nicoletti. “I tried to make
a veggie burger but the customers
weren’t into it, so I
started sneaking vegetables in
the sausages I was making.”
Nicoletti was drawn to
making sausages, which she
used to hand-make in her
store. Sausages were a great
option, she said, because they
offer options to be more sustainable
in terms of affordability
and fl avor.
“I gravitated to butchery
and sausages because it’s
the fi rst sustainable-minded
food,” said Nicoletti. “I tried
to stretch that, make it stretch
further, but I couldn’t keep
up.”
Nicoletti partnered up
with her friend Ariel Hauptman
to launch her new venture,
Seemore Meats & Veggies,
in February 2020. Named
after Nicoletti’s grandfather,
Seemore Meats & Veggies is
one of the fi rst exclusively
women-owned-and-operated
butcher businesses in the
United States.
The company aims to make
eating meat more sustainable
by packing vegetables into
the sausages, creating delicious
COURIER L 18 IFE, FEB. 26-MAR. 4, 2021
fl avors based on popular
meals, all while encouraging
customers to lessen their meat
consumption. Current fl avors
include La Dolce Beet-A (made
with pork, fresh beets, garlic,
and fennel), the Broccoli Melt
(made with pork, broccolini,
Monterey jack, and pepperoncini),
and the Loaded Baked
Potato (made with pork, potatoes,
cheddar, uncured bacon
bits and chives), among other
customer-favorites.
“At fi rst I wanted to kind
of hide the vegetables. I knew
that the customers weren’t
keen on lessening meat consumption,
so I created fl avors
that were familiar to them,”
Nicoletti said. “One way is to
mimic dishes that incorporate
both. I almost wanted my sausages
to be the gum in ‘Willy
Wonka.’ I wanted to reduce
meat consumption, and make
it as accessible and easy as
possible while giving them familiar
fl avors that they love.”
An unconventional grind
Nicoletti recognizes how
strange it might sound to be a
butcher that is trying to lessen
the world’s meat consumption.
“It doesn’t make a ton of
logical sense, but I think it’s
becoming more mainstream
knowledge that eating too
much meat is not good for your
body and the planet. We can
adapt and change,” she said. “I
believe in the power of regenerative
farming. We have the
power to do amazing things in
regards to climate change and
have to lessen the dependence
on meat to get there.”
Seemore Meats & Veggies
launched right before much
of the city shuttered due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Nicoletti
says that one of the hardest
parts about starting a business
amid the shutdown was
that they weren’t able to demo
their product in stores.
“Our product is such a
demo product, getting people
to buy new meat is really
hard,” said Nicoletti. “Not being
able to be in stores and
traveling has been hard. A lot
of big stores took a halt on new
brands during the pandemic.”
However, she says she’s
been able to fi nd the bright
side in it, acknowledging that
the pandemic has been good
for identifying problems in
the meat industry itself.
“In some ways, it has been
amazing. I think the pandemic
shone a light on some really
major issues in the meat industry
that maybe we weren’t
aware of before,” said Nicoletti.
“These were problems
that I wanted to tackle and
HOW THE SAUSAGE GETS MADE: Cara Nicoletti (left) and her homemade
sausages. Photo by Seemore Meats & Veggies
why I started. We were fortunate
that we could operate outside
of that system. It’s been
interesting for sure, but if we
can survive this year, we can
survive anything.”
Seemore Meats & Veggies
sausages are available for purchase
online and in Whole
Foods across New York and
New Jersey, as well as other
stores in the area. As she continues
to grow her business,
Nicoletti hopes that more
women will get involved in the
meat industry, which is traditionally
a male-dominated
fi eld.
She also hopes to expand
Seemore Meats & Veggies
with new affordable products
and partnerships with local
farmers.
“I’m really hoping to expand
into more than sausages,
like to get into different meat
items under the same banner
of less meat, not meatless. I
want to replace people’s normal
meat to reduce consumption,”
said Nicoletti. “I’d like
to touch more areas of the supermarket
and keep growing,
and to reduce prices and create
things that are more affordable
to everybody.”
This story fi rst appeared on
AMNY.com.
BY SUSAN DE VRIES
This year an annual artsfocused
event that celebrates
the rich tradition of Black art
in Brooklyn hopes to unite
artist and viewers with an exploration
of love as a power
for healing, unity and liberation.
The theme is “Love, this
time” for the 2021 edition of
the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn
Partnership’s Black Artstory
Month, and nine installations
on are on display in storefront
windows along Myrtle Avenue.
Curated by Atiba T. Edwards,
the exhibition includes
work by Black artists and activists
in Fort Greene and
Clinton Hill, including Tiffany
Baker, Ashley Crawford
and Steven Mosley. You can
also get some artistic inspiration
via the playlist Edwards
compiled (available via Spotify)
as part of the month-long
celebration.
Artwork will be on display
through the month of February
and you can fi nd a full list
of the participating artists and
a map of the installation sites
on the event page online.
The annual art work takes
place each year in conjunction
with Black History Month.
This story fi rst appeared on
Brownstoner.com.
A meat makeover
Stroll along Myrtle Avenue’s annual
‘Black Artstory Month’ art walk
BROOKLYN
Windows of love
Steven Mosley paints the window at Pecks as part of Black Artstory
month. Photo by Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership
/AMNY.com
/Brownstoner.com
