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THE BUTCHER
PDL's In House Butcher
STEVE TOMS
Steve is from Ontario, Canada and has more than 16 years’ experience working in the meat industry. He is a fully qualified and classically trained master butcher, and is able to fully cut, process, and merchandise all cuts of meat from any protein for maximum customer appeal and profit.
He has the knowledge and understanding of all cuts of meat that PDL produces and is an expert in the cutting specifications required in our industry. Steve and his team are always up to date on latest trends in the industry, and can accommodate ANY custom and unique cut requests, just ask!
Steve started his career at a small family country Market as a Butcher’s Assistant in July 2004 shortly after transitioned to Fortinos Supermarkets, (a local favorite known for premier high-end meats and produce), he honed his skills there until he came to join us here at PDL.
Fortinos is a retail banner under the Loblaws companies’ umbrella (Canada's largest food distributor). During his time with Fortinos, Steve held the positions of Lead Butcher, Meat Manager and Assistant Store Manager. Steve also held senior head office roles in meat such as senior category manager and most recently senior specialist of meat retail operations responsible for the entire banner in southern Ontario.
Steve recently took home the title of Ontario’s Finest Butcher in a competition hosted by Meat & Poultry Ontario in September 2020 and we are thrilled to have him a part of our team.
ONTARIO'S FINEST BUTCHER
Steve Toms, of Fortinos Hamilton, took home the title of Ontario’s Finest Butcher in a competition hosted by Meat & Poultry Ontario.
Toms, a 2-year veteran to the competition, earned the honor after a fierce head-to-head meat cutting battle with 2 other finalists.
The Ontario’s Finest Butcher competition was started seven years ago to showcase the profession and recognize the level of skill found in butcher shops and meat plants across the province. Twelve competitors from across Ontario faced off in an elimination round (held in September 2020) to determine the top three finalists. During this round they were given 30 minutes to transform a fresh pork bone-in leg, bone-in butt, and bone-in loin, into merchandisable cuts of their choice, and were judged on the degree of difficulty/efficiency and skill level in boning, trimming and cutting, primal cut utilization and financial performance. The top three moved on to the finals where the competition was still about skill, but creativity and consumer-appeal were added to the judging criteria.
The theme for 2020 final ‘black box’ round was ‘Deja Food’ and Toms along with fellow finalists had 30 minutes to transform two ducks, a leg of veal, and a pork bone-in loin, to prepare several remarkable-looking, display-ready items. The three judges combined scores determined it was Toms that would carry the honor.