Back in November, a friend of mine, my neighbor and his father in law took on the task of butchering a half moose that I got the opportunity to buy from the hunting team. The butchered carcass weighed 106 kg with practically no fat on it, because it was a bull felled after rut. Mister moose was too busy wooing the ladies to eat.
This was the first time I had taken on such butchering without the entire team being there. The most experienced among us was my neighbor's father in law, who handled picking the animal apart into bigger pieces while the rest of us cut those pieces up into smaller ones for vacuum sealing, weighing and labelling. We turned the less fine pieces (flanks, calves etc.), as well as whatever was polished off and taken off the ribs, into mince. Whatever bits deemed not suitable for mince, as well as tendons and any fat, were put in a bucket for my neighbor's dog and cat. We discarded the bones via a little trip to the offal pit.
The entire process was relatively painless, mostly thanks to the hunting team having a well-equipped slaughtering hut. The biggest annoyance was the previous user not having cleaned the meat grinder properly, leaving bits of fat on parts of it. Some very hot water, soap and scrubbing got rid of those bits. We made sure to leave the grinder as well as any other equipment we used, and the floors, cleaner than when we came.
We started at 09:00 and finished around 18:00 with one hour lunch. My neighbor's father in law left after half the time since he wasn't interested in dealing with the small bits. Hence the total amount of labour amounted to 3*8 + 4 = 28 hours. All helpers were rewarded with meat according to its value as determined statistically so far at time of butchering: 2 hours/kg. I thought this was maybe a bit on the low side, but others I've talked think I "overpaid", and I heard no complaints, so it seems to have been fair.
We turned 106 kg of carcass into 46 kg of mince and 35 kg of cuts, for a total of 81 kg, all vacuum sealed. This is a windfall for sure, but this kind of offer of a half moose only comes around once every five years or so in our team, so it should be depreciated accordingly.
The numbers
The value added by the butchering and vacuum sealing process amounts to 28 hours / 81 kg ≃ 21 minutes/kg. In addition to this there is the purchasing price for the carcass itself of 55 SEK/kg, plus vacuum sealing bags and other material. Depreciated over 5 years this works out to 1310.40 SEK, 4.80 h and 16.2 kg per year for 2024-2028. Taking these into account, and using the average costs and yield for the 2023 and 2024 hunt, the following table can be computed:
| Year | SEK | h | kg |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 4660.00 | 77.38 | 40.0 |
| 2024 | 8446.80 | 50.46 | 62.2 |
| 2025 | 7208.60 | 66.32 | 59.2 |
| 2026 | 7208.60 | 66.32 | 59.2 |
| 2027 | 7208.60 | 66.32 | 59.2 |
| 2028 | 7208.60 | 66.32 | 59.2 |
| Sum | 41941.20 | 393.12 | 339.0 |
| Mean | 6990.20 | 65.52 | 56.5 |
| Per kg | 123.72 | 1.16 |
The years 2025-2028 are estimates. Because the value production rate of workers here in Västerbotten is around 600 SEK/h, labour added far outweighs dead labour (constant capital) in this process. The money outlay works out to just 0.21 h/kg, a ratio of 5.6:1 compared to the "outlay" of labour. In other words this process has low organic composition of capital.
The total value above works out to 1h22min per kg of meat, quite a bit below the value for 2023 which would be 2h8min.