Butchering a dairy cow, step by step

Most retired dairy cows are broken down on a production line and minced. 210 went to a butcher’s shop, where four butchers took her apart by hand over several days. Neither Neil nor Peter had broken down a retired dairy cow before. These are the photographs from the block.

Sides and quarters

A beef carcass is split down the backbone into two sides, and each side is cut between the ribs into a forequarter and a hindquarter. In cattle over 30 months old the backbone itself is specified risk material: an approved cutting plant or butcher has to remove it.¹ That is why an old cow gives no T-bone steaks in Britain.

The hindquarter

The hindquarter holds the cuts most people know: the sirloin and fillet along the back, the rump, and the big muscles of the back leg, the topside, silverside and thick flank, with the shin below. On an old, grass-fed cow the fat is often a deep cream or yellow rather than white: the colour comes from carotene in the grass.

The back leg of beef, cut through to the bone, showing deep red muscles separated by cream fat. — The back leg, cut through to the bone

Two boned-out joints of beef from the hindquarter on a worn wooden block, with a boning knife beside them. — Hindquarter joints, boned out

The forequarter

The forequarter is the harder-working end: the chuck and blade from the shoulder, the clod and neck, the brisket, the fore rib and thin rib, and the fore shin. Some of it was rolled and tied into joints, and the ribs were cut into short ribs for slow cooking.

Two butchers in striped aprons stand at the block with a forequarter of beef laid out in front of them. — The forequarter on the block

Three rolled and tied beef joints on the block, cut ends showing red meat spiralled with fat. — Rolled joints

Slabs of beef short ribs stacked on the block, layers of meat and white fat between the bones. — Short ribs

Mince, sausages and burgers

The flank and the trim went to mince, sausages and burgers, made in the shop by Louie and Craig. How we cook the burgers.

A butcher holds up long strings of freshly made beef sausages beside more strings hanging from a rail. — Her sausages

Two butchers make burgers: one mixes a red tub of mince, the other presses patties beside a tray of meatballs. — Pressing burgers

To the curer

Other cuts went to Peter at The Cotswold Curer. The silverside and top rump were salted whole for bresaola; the topside, neck and shin went into salami.

Gloved hands rub salt and pepper into a whole joint of beef in a steel tray, with more joints waiting beside it. — Salting the bresaola

The aged ribs

The fore rib and sirloin were left to age for weeks longer. Then the rib was cut into tomahawks, the long rib bone left on and the backbone taken off, and Marcel cooked them at The Eagle Tavern for the people who knew her. For ageing and cooking an old cow at home, see how to treat an old dairy cow like a prize.

Two tomahawk steaks with long rib bones lie on the block beside the rest of the aged fore rib. — Tomahawks from her fore rib

Into the boxes

Most of the rest, the steaks, joints and mince, was sold in meat boxes, and those sales paid for the cow.

A wooden tray on grass holds vacuum-packed steaks, packs of mince, burgers and sausages. — One of the meat boxes

See it cut by cut

To see where each cut sits on her body and what it became, try the interactive 210, cut by cut, or watch the 59-second beef cuts animation.

How we know

Every photograph here is of 210, taken at the butcher’s and the curer’s while the film was being made. What went where comes from the film’s footage.

Sources

Food Standards Agency, Guide to removal of vertebral column SRM from primal cuts.
210: From Dairy to Dinner, the film’s footage and stills: the butchers, the curer and the dinner at The Eagle Tavern.

Last checked 2026-10-25. Spotted an error? Tell us via the press contact.