Rachel Shuster

Located at 157 Harding St. in Worcester, Stillman Quality Meats (SQM) is a new butcher shop focused on the best meats you can find. While the Harding Street location is new, only opening just before Christmas, SQM started years ago. Owner Kate Stillman’s lifelong passion for agriculture and farm life sparked the beginning of SQM in 2005. With her farming roots, she refined her skills, becoming an entrepreneur and businesswoman.

“I have deep agricultural roots,” Stillman said. “My grandparents had a dairy farm in Lunenburg, and my father was in vegetable and fruit farming. I grew up thinking I was going to follow in my family’s footsteps – the greenhouse business was going to be my passion.”

As time went on, Stillman realized her calling was a bit different. “Life happens – you go to college, meet people, and opportunities come about,” she said. “Flash forward to when I was married, we were looking for an in to join my family business. This was about 15 years ago – before grass-fed, etc. was even a thing. At the time, there was zero local meat being offered, and that seemed like a great opportunity and a natural fit as a sister business to my family’s business.”

The business exploded instantaneously, as Stillman and her then-husband got into that business right at the beginning. “It took off – the demand was strong,” she said. They opened a farm in Hardwick, where Stillman still raises grass-fed, pasture-raised animals. The farm has an eclectic mix of livestock, including cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys. Stillman prides herself and her business on being truly “farm to fork,” controlling the process from start to finish.

However, over time, it became more difficult to sustain the model they built with the goals they had for business success – providing customers with the best service and quality meats in a timely manner and opening a brick-and-mortar shop.

“The infrastructure wasn’t there to support local meat industry,” she said. “How do you deal with small local people retailing stuff, building relationships, troubleshooting, etc. After four years of frustrations with timing like getting turkeys on time for Thanksgiving, working out kinks, having to say no to people, etc., I was ready for a next step.”

Stillman and her husband came to the conclusion that they needed to build on-farm processing. “Most farms don’t have full vertical integration,” she said. “We started looking into food safety, regulations, etc., land use permits, and towns, etc. Fast forward to now, it took four years for us to build on-farm processing. It turned us from a seasonal business to year-round.”

Stillman also tried year-round business in Boston, but being a small business, it wasn’t sustainable. “What our business is about is being there with customers and being behind the counters,” Stillman said. “Boston was two-and-a-half hours from the farm in Hardwick, and quality of life was slipping. That’s how we landed in Worcester. We were looking to showcase business, but it had to be close enough to the farm where we would have a connection to the business, but also watching the animals.”

Stillman started looking at venues and was bowled over by the vibe and the activity in Worcester. “The decision followed pretty fast. It has taken us a while to climb through hoops, but we did it. The Worcester location on Harding Street allowed us to lay our vision out.”

Being in Worcester provides Stillman a great way to bring a little bit of Hardwick to the city. “We have a great network of neighbors we can work and partner with,” Stillman said.

At the shop, you can find specialty cuts of meat from the animals on her Hardwick farm, including grass-fed beef, pasture-raised pork, pasture-raised poultry, grass-fed lamb, sausages and grinds and deli meats. The shop also offers artisan and craft products, including specialty cheese, local produce, provisions and fresh, local seafood through a partnership with Boston-based seafood aggregator Red’s Best.

SQM on Harding Street is open 10:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. For more information, call 413-277-9600.