Business Spotlight: Elston's Community Meats in Canaan

Story written by Shelley Hoffrogge

(CANAAN, Ind.) – Open for just a little over a year, Elston’s Community Meats in Canaan has made quite the impression.

The owners, Scott and Lori Elston, opened this business with a dream to give back to a community that has been so good to them. 

Turning back the clock, they have taken a leap of faith and brought back the old-time operations of processing. 

“This business was needed in this community. As cattle owners ourselves, the struggle to get on a waitlist was getting more difficult,” owner Scott Elston said. 

The Elston's decided to open a butcher shop that would not only benefit them, but their community as well. 

For example, the Milan youth cheer team held a raffle and two of the prizes were half hog specials provided by the meat locker.

Most recently, Elston’s donated chicken, ground beef, and bacon to the Youth To Yellowstone of  Ripley County.

It doesn’t stop there, Elston’s is always doing deals and specials to assist customers in choosing the best product from any of their market cases, or the cut floor.

All of their processing is done in house and in the old-fashioned, by-hand way.

Manager Karl Hoffrogge tells us, “The farmers provide the good product and we just enhance the production of the meat to satisfy the customers.” 

The meat locker processes livestock and wild game and also has a wide variety of selections in their fresh and frozen meat product market cases. The smoking of the product is also done in house. 

Elston’s Community Meats is not only where you get your meat products, it is a place where new and old friendships flourish, where everyone knows everyone, where customers can eat their food knowing it was made with careful hands in a practice created so many years ago. 

This business started with a dream and a good deed in thought and Elston’s has done just that and so much more.

Here are some photos from the shop: