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March 2025 by pete cap
Extremely Disappointed – Bad Meat, Poor Service
We’ve been using Meat Cleaver for over 17 years without issue, but after this experience, we’ll never be back. We took in a cow elk and a buck for processing and were told it would take five weeks. Two weeks in, we called to check on the status, questioning why the process was taking so long. When we finally picked up our meat, we were given less than 60 lbs of elk—only after complaining did they suddenly “find” more to give us.
The real issue, however, was the quality of the meat. We immediately noticed a slimy texture and foul smell when we defrosted it. We checked multiple cuts from both the elk and deer, and every single piece was bad. We contacted Meat Cleaver, and while they admitted to believing us, their solution was to offer us leftover meat from the season. Later, we found out through hunting social media that we weren’t the only ones with this problem—many hunters reported spoiled meat, and it was shared that their freezers had broken down.
If they knew their freezers had failed, why would they still distribute bad meat? That’s beyond unacceptable—it’s dangerous. My son (who had an out-of-state tag) and I put in a massive amount of time, effort, and money into this hunt, only for it to be ruined by careless handling. The worst part is that my family could have gotten seriously sick from consuming spoiled meat.
It’s incredibly disappointing to see a once-trusted business decline like this.. If you value your hard-earned game and your health, take your business elsewhere.
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March 2025 by Jason Finn
Dropped off my elk in the beginning of November. Took awhile to get it processed and returned. My steaks taste good, but the ground is inedible. I took the time to process my elk in the field properly and this is not the product I should have received. As others have mentioned, the ground meat smells spoiled and rotten, wouldn’t even feed this to the dog. Beyond frustrating, hard work and money wasted! Do yourself a favor and go elsewhere…
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March 2025 by stephen holappa
The result was like many others. I am very unhappy with the processed elk. My order was simple, burger and roasts. I removed the loins and back straps prior to dropping the animal . When I picked up the processed meat the burger is like paste. I cannot make a bugger out of it. I need to use it for soup, chili and sauces. I talked with them and was told they knives were dull and needed to be replaced. They should have known this and dealt with it. This is a quality control issue. I will never go back. I suggest you find another processor. Do not use meat cleaver.
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February 2025 by Jackson Bridel
The initial drop off and meeting with the office manager was great. The rest of my experience was not good at best. My cousin and I dropped off 1 bull elk and 1 mule deer buck. It took weeks of me calling them to get a response about when my order would be ready and ship. I was not in a rush to get my order I just didn’t appreciate being left in the dark for nearly 3 weeks with my calls not returned.
The ground meat is not labelled at all and the sausage is only labelled with the type not the animal/order number. Both the ground meat and the sausage were poorly packaged and I have opened multiple packages that taste spoiled/off. I normally cannot wait to eat my wild game meat but unfortunately I chose to
get my game processed at Meat Cleaver and each bag I open there is a 50/50 chance that it will not taste good. Some of the meat tastes good some of it does not. Just very disappointed.
I am very disappointed and do not recommend bringing your hard earned animal here.
Check the reviews. The good reviews are from years ago. Not sure what changed at this processor, but they have received numerous bad, 1 star reviews from their work this year.
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February 2025 by Sean Buczek
The word "disappointment" doesn't begin to describe this situation. Many of us who bring our meat here are big game hunters, well-acquainted with the preparation, struggle, and hard work involved in harvesting an elk—let alone the effort required to get it out of the woods.
This year, I was fortunate enough to harvest a cow elk. I brought the meat, already frozen, to Meat Cleaver at the end of the fourth season. A little after the New Year, I received a call to pick it up.
When I arrived, I noticed that hardly any of the meat was frozen. I asked the staff assisting me with loading it into my truck, and they assured me it was fine. Trusting their word, I immediately unloaded the meat into my deep freezer when I got home.
The following week, I thawed some burger and was hit with the horrific smell of rotten meat when I opened the package. Upon examining several other packages of burger, roasts, and steaks, I discovered the entire elk had been ruined due to improper care by Meat Cleaver. In total, I had to throw away over 150 pounds of meat.
This could have been avoided with simple quality practices. In my opinion, this is unforgivable. I will never bring my meat to this processor—or any processor—again.
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February 2025 by Nick DeLano
*PLEASE READ* Sadly I have to write what was once a 5 start business, a 1 start review. I dropped off my elk with them to get processed and not only did it take 4 weeks for basic cuts they had also lied to me about my hanging weight to charge more. Only correcting it in person when I confronted them about it with photos, knowing my true hanging weight. AND sadly, they not only "lost" some of my meat - but it appears as if it was stored improperly and has spoiled in their process, I have had to throw out numerous packages. I sent them referrals equalling to 10 hunters this year and 7 of them have reported back with the same issues of spoiled taste, not transparent numbers, and one even had an entire elk missing from his order yet they still charged him for it without offering a refund.
Sadly this business is clearly either struggling hence the constant allowing of taking meat without regards to storage or care, or poorly managed and unorganized. I understand that they might be the most competitive price wise but sadly it has failed them in my eyes. I will gladly pay more knowing that it will be taken care of with the same amount of respect as we give the animal.
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February 2025 by Jed Brandon
Originally dropped off 2 elk on 11/23(mine and my buddies). Had never used these guys in the past, but after years of hearing nothing but positive feedback from others, decided to give them a shot. Had a pretty unpleasant experience at drop off with a mouthy, younger gentleman who unloaded the animals. Not the end of the world and looked past.
Dealt with Jeff, the apparent new owner, on giving the cuts we wanted to have and what sausage we wanted done. Once finished, Jeff said to expect an email within 3-4 weeks from drop off date of 11/23. Simple enough.
As of 12/23, my buddy nor I, had received any communication or emails. I emailed them to see when we might be expecting to pickup our processed meat. Received a response back 12/26 “CLOSED TILL JAN 2ND. WILL BE IN TOUCH SOON….MC”. Ok, no problem, I expect and appreciate them being closed for the holidays.
Received an email 12/30 stating my order is ready for pickup. Arrive on 1/2 to pickup my order. Upon picking up, I asked Jeff when my buddy can expect an email or be notified that his animal is ready. Gave Jeff my buddy’s name, he looks it up in the computer, and tells me “well, we don’t go in order of the tag numbers or the order of when they were dropped off”. Ok, whatever.
Get home, start unloading my meat from coolers and start placing into the freezer, only to notice a strong 25% of the vacuum sealed packages, the vacuum seal had failed and the meat had frost or freezer burn inside the packaging. Not only that, but I only received 3 packages of Elk tenderloins with 1-2 tenderloins, about the size of a 1/2” thick hockey puck…. There was absolutely no damage done to the tenderloins or backstraps on my animal, and no reason there should have been any trimmed out of what was dropped off.
Decided to take a look at the drop off and cut sheet to see if maybe I am missing something and confirm what the drop off weight was. Guess what?!? No drop off weight given! I specifically quizzed Jeff when we dropped off our animals how much meat we could expect to receive back from a full size cow elk. His reply, 175 pounds. What did I receive back, per their invoice? 233 total pounds.
To make matters worse, I don’t know what kind of pork fat they mixed in with the burger(I requested 10% pork fat be mixed in), but when trying to make patties, this is the stickiest, greasiest meat I have ever touched. AND, the smell is horrendous.
I would highly recommend steering clear of this business, if you have the expectation of receiving back the animal you dropped off, in edible condition, and feeling satisfied with the outcome or your hard earned harvest.
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February 2025 by Morgan Eberley
First impression was good when dropping off my quarters. Took 6 weeks to process, was lead to believe that it would be quicker but it is what it is and understand its a busy time. I weighed my elk prior to bringing it in so I would have an idea of what I was working with. The problem I encountered was when I received my invoice for pickup, I noticed that the drop off weight they listed was double what I brought in. I checked out my original cut sheet and they had never filled in the weight or else that would have caught my eye and I could have rectified it at the beginning before anything was cut. Could have been an honest mistake or maybe they were pulling a fast one on me. Would think that my weight in vs weight out would have shown them that something was off when I brought it up but they weren't having it. Either way I had to pay it to get my meat. Will be trying someplace else next time and lesson learned to ensure I have the weight listed on my cut sheet at drop off.
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February 2025 by Kevin Flanagan
LThis was a terrible experience. Had to follow up multiple times and took 8 weeks to finally get meat. When I did retrieve the animals I dropped off (two mature buck mule deer) for processing I only received 57 lbs of meat in return, which is absolutely unacceptable. The packaging was poorly sealed, and they failed to follow the cut sheet provided. Even more concerning, tenderloin and backstrap were included in my allotment—meat I had already processed myself from both animals prior to delivering to processor. This raises serious questions about the handling and accuracy of their processing. I would not trust this business with my game again and would strongly advise others to look elsewhere.
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February 2025 by Timothy Voss
Dropped off 1 bull elk mid-Nov to get processed. I ordered all steaks, ground, and 20 lbs of Cased sausage (10 Breakfast / 10 German) - like I have ordered in past years.
After I picked up my order, the steak and ground was fine but I received no cased sausage like I had ordered (and Jeff the owner took my initial order in person in the office and we talked about cased sausage flavors on the grill for 10 min.). Upon asking why I didn’t get cased sausage, the response was they made a business decision this year that they are no longer doing cased sausage as a company (never mentioning this to customers or on the order sheet - and others have said this on their reviews as well).
The owner offered to cure my order by having me bring all my uncased sausage back to be cased. After a month of hearing nothing, I finally received ‘your order is ready’ and I went to pickup my cased order. I learned they had mixed, in one batch, both my breakfast sausage with German sausage and cased them together. 100% of the cased sausage was not edible (after trying at home) and not even good enough to donate. It smelled awful and wouldn’t even feed to my dog. I brought back all the sausage and lost ~20 lbs from my Elk.
The owner did fully refund my order but I lost a quarter of my entire elk order that can’t be replaced now.
After harvesting an elk and packing it on your back 5+ miles for this to happen is unacceptable.
From start to finish I felt like I was deceived by the owner / office manager / staff. I spent 6 trips driving back and forth to their shop to give them the opportunity to fix the mistakes.
I highly recommend you take your animal and get it processed somewhere else even if it’s a further drive for you!
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February 2025 by Justin Provolt
We hope this review helps others not waste their hard earned wild game and money. Drop off was relatively smooth but disorganized, Meat Cleaver took 6 weeks to process our elk. At pickup the packaged meat was not frozen, it seems that their freezer was not operating properly. After paying the invoice in full, the meat was transported back home to be placed in the deep freeze.
Recently we were excited to enjoy some of the hard earned elk but quickly found the burger to have a foul spoiled smell, as if the meat had been handled improperly during those 6 weeks. This is beyond unacceptable and frankly this business should be inspected and shutdown by the health department before someone gets sick. Take your hard earned wild game products to another butcher or even better learn how to process game yourself.
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February 2025 by Ryder Rice
So just an update meat cleaver tried rectifying them losing of our harvest (3 cow elk) by offering 120 lbs. they could give me for free. Yes, you read right that's it 120 lbs.! of ground for 3 elk. Well we just fried up the first 2 lbs. of ground and it was very bitter tasting and frankly not near edible. What an absolute waste! If you want to know what getting robbed of your hard work feels like Meat Cleaver is the place to go.
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February 2025 by Patrick M
I took in my cleaned xtra large Mule deer on Dec 22, they had a bunch of Venezuelans working the meat line. It is now January 28: i have contacted them every week. I keep emailing and they keep promising “soon”, but now that i read all these other posts . . . Dang. They promised to call me yesterday and didnt. Everything i read online says not to hang meat longer than 2 weeks. Guess i should have driven to Longmont
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February 2025 by Jonathan Ebbers
Business is under new ownership and it seems their care for hard earned meat and quality of services is not the same as prior ownership. My buddy brought a deer to them for processing. After being left in the dark and several phone calls, It took almost 2 months to hear anything back from them. When he finally picked up the meat it was not frozen. All of the meat is spoiled. Looking at recent reviews, It’s incredibly frustrating that so many people have had similar experiences this season. Be extremely cautious if you decide to take your wild game here for processing. If you are picking up meat from them I suggest opening a package and smelling/inspecting it thoroughly before you leave.
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February 2025 by Thomas Michalski
**ATTENTION HUNTERS**
Meat Cleaver had a freezer fail last hunting season and a ton of meat ended up getting spoiled.
Check ALL YOUR MEAT BEFORE YOU LEAVE! They are not being accountable for the spoiled product. They will not return any of your calls. 8 weeks for a deer to be processed and upon pick up, the meat was NOT FROZEN.
DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY HERE. FIND A DIFFERENT PROCESSOR. THEY ARE UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP AND HAVE ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY.
RECENT REVIEWS ARE A TESTAMENT TO HOW THEY RUN THIS BUSINESS FROM THE FRONT OFFICE TO THE BUTCHER.
