B&E Meats in Crookston, MN, is a full-service meat market offering expert butchering services to the local area. We are family-owned and operated, carrying on our family’s tradition of superb cuts of fresh meat to feed your family.
Our tradition started with the patriarch of the family, Kenny Epema, who started working in high school as a butcher for Crookston Cold Storage under Jack Peterson. Unfortunately, the building was torn down in the early 1970s, and Kenny moved to California where he utilized his skills working as a professional butcher.
Kenny moved back to Crookston after a few years and started working for Coca-Cola Bottling. But butchering was still near and dear to his heart, so he began processing venison in his garage.
Hunting was always a family tradition and Kenny taught his sons, Brent and Brad, how to hunt and cut up the deer meat. He also shared his skills with the local community by assisting a few local farmers with butchering their cows.
Kenny partnered with Wayne Melbye at Erickson’s Meat Market, and the two offered venison processing and deer cutting to the community until Erickson’s closed in the 1990s.
Kenny passed away in 1994 from a heart attack and both his sons moved back to Crookston where they picked up the tradition of butchering by processing deer in their garage, just like their dad. Brent and Brad processed about 100 deer a year until ending their “garage days” in 2003.
In 2004, Brent purchased Fisher Meats in Fisher, MN, where he offered processed wild game and sausage seasonally. Two years later, Brent purchased Camas Concrete plant in Crookston where he could continue to process wild game, make brats, and offer a small assortment of meat sticks.