The storefront at Pickrell Locker offers customers a variety of meat products, rubs and seasonings. Products are also available in Beatrice and Cortland with plans to expand.
Christina Lyons
Employees at Pickrell Locker work together to package local beef and pork.
Christina Lyons
A wall of trophies and plaques from competitions that Pickrell Locker attends every year.
Christina Lyons
Pickrell Locker and Smokehouse opened for business in September of 2017. What started out as a hobby for owner and butcher Bob Freeman quickly became something more, he said. “It was a hobby that turned into a job.”
The Pickrell Locker and Smokehouse has been providing quality products in the area for eight years.
“We are just a small meat processing plant,” said owner Bob Freeman. “As a smaller business, we have better quality and more selection than big box stores. Every customer matters, and we focus on the quality.”
When Freeman bought the property from the bank, he designed and built the locker space. Within the last few years, he purchased a building next door to the east offering more space and easier access to the customer picking up meat.
This past summer, Pickrell Locker had a pop-up food stand at the Gage County Fair serving different types of barbecue meals.
“I’d seen other businesses do that type of thing. It was just to get out in the community and meet people and showcase some of our products. We have really good brisket, pulled pork, brats, chicken and season beef patties. Every once in a while we’ll make some specialty meals like pork loins.”
He noted that the mac and meat are the most requested items. Everything is done from scratch and with in-house recipes.
Freeman said they provide raw, processed or cooked in all types of meat. They do beef, pork, goat, lamb or sheep with some wildlife processing like deer, elk, moose and wild hog.
“It’s fun to do the wildlife, but quite a bit more work,” he said.
The locker averages around 1,000 beef and 500 hogs a year.
The storefront in Pickrell offers a variety of fresh meats, rubs and seasonings. Products are also available in Cortland and Beatrice. They hope to be able to add locations in the coming months.
Freeman noted he hopes to become a federally inspected locker.
“By the end of summer or early fall we hope to be able to USDA inspected. It opens up more opportunities to co-package and co-manufacture. We would be able to sell products outside the state. We could work with farmers to package and produce private label products,” he said.
Currently about 15 employees work at the Pickrell Locker.
“We have a really good team right now, and we work together well,” he said.
Crystal Houseman is the general manager and works with accounting. She has worked with Freeman for about six years.
Freeman noted his wall of plaques and trophies from a competition that he attends every year with North American Meat Processors Association.
More information on open hours, appointments for harvesting animals and products can be found on the Pickrell Locker Facebook page.
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The storefront at Pickrell Locker offers customers a variety of meat products, rubs and seasonings. Products are also available in Beatrice and Cortland with plans to expand.
Pickrell Locker and Smokehouse opened for business in September of 2017. What started out as a hobby for owner and butcher Bob Freeman quickly became something more, he said. “It was a hobby that turned into a job.”
