We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful David Hitchings. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with David below.

Hi David, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?

My father is one of my heros in my lifetime. Many people ask me how I got started with my side business building high end cutting boards and meat carvers. I explain that when I was young my dad had a great interest in carpentry. Many times when I was a kid around the age of 10 he would ask me to come out to the garage to help him with tasks that he might not be able to handle by himself. Many times it was an inconvenience to my desire to play outside with my friends. What I did not realize a that young age is I was subconsciously taking in valuable information regarding using the tools he was using and the methods in how he was building things. I have always had a desire to build things using carpentry. As I got older and moved out on my own, I started to purchase tools for myself, including a table saw and other odds and ends. I used those tools to build my own living room coffee table and end tables. I have also used those tools to earn money trimming out commercial retail spaces as well as to renovate my own homes. These experiences I learned from him throughout the years regarding wood work have allowed me to build a business, provide additional income for my family as well as allowed me to escape the day to day and do something that he loved and I loved as well. It brings up memories of spending time with him, learning a trade that we both came to enjoy.

David, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is David Hitchings and my business (Butcher Blox) came about accidentally. During covid I had a friend of mine ask me about building a cutting board. He wanted to know if there was a co-op in town that had saws and tools he could pay to use. I explained to him that I doubted such shop existed, and that I thought it would be a huge liability making these type of tools available to the general public without having some experience. I then decided to build him a board myself. When I finished the board I showed it to my wife and she asked if she could post it on Facebook to show all her friends. To our surprise we started getting requests to build these for other people. We had no intention of starting a business, however we agreed to start building boards for other customers and from there the business has grown very quickly. Over the past 4 years our business has doubled in revenue every year. The products we offer are mainly large cutting boards, brisket boards and cutting boards designed for using with the popular pellet grills being offered today. We have also dabbled in charcuterie boards, epoxy and other knick knacks as well as our growing custom orders.

Butcher Blox build process consists of building products with nothing but kiln dried hardwoods both foreign and domestic. Woods such as Walnut, Maple, Hickory, White Oak, Wenge, Padauk, Leopard, Black Limba, Bloodwood, Purple Heart as well as many others. We use nothing but Titebond III to glue our boards together. This glue is the strongest I have found for what we use it for. I would go as far as to say that the wood would break before the glue joint in about 98% of the cases we have tested. We also treat our final product differently as far a finishes go, many board builders utilize food grade mineral oil and bees wax to seal their final product. Butcher Blox has the ability to do the same at the customers request, however we have found that using food grade poly retains the final finish much better and withstands more use without reapplying the product. Our boards are designed to use, wash with mild soap and water, towel dry and let stand to finish final dry.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I have been blessed by the many customers I have had in the past who have by word of mouth, have encouraged others to purchase our product. Without our clients we do not exist, and we are grateful to each and everyone of them. I have also been blessed by other entrepreneurs that are in the food industry that have been nothing but great about promoting our product. Such as Dante Ramirez the owner of Tender Barbeque. Dante has been gracious enough to allow me to promote my product at his place of business, and many of the events he either teaches at or sells his product at, and we cannot thank them enough. We have also had several others that are in the food supplier industry that have promoted and purchased our product such as Ben E. Keith and Smithfield Culinary along with Kreuz Market BBQ restaurant in Lockhart, Tx.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I would have to say word of mouth, and promotion from those noted earlier. I also feel like we build a quality product. I will not let an inferior product leave our facility. I have had one board in 4 years come back to me and it was due strictly to my hard headedness to try and build a board that was against all the rules of board building. It came out beautiful, however it was destined to fail, and it did. I gladly replace that board with the client with a board that was equivalent in value or more, and they were tickled pink. I pride myself in doing the right thing and standing behind our product. All we want the customer to receive is a board they love and feel like they got a good value for what they purchased.     

Contact Info:

• Instagram: butcher_blox
• Facebook: Butcher Blox
• Other: Our website is currently being built at this time. Once it is up and running it should be located at ButcherBlox.org