Ontario's Retail Meat Cutter apprenticeship, trade code 245R: Grade 12 entry, one level, 3,460 hours on the job plus 540 hours of in-school training, voluntary status, and no certifying exam — the Certificate of Apprenticeship is the highest certification.
Applies in: Ontario
In Ontario, a meat cutter apprentice registers under the trade name Retail Meat Cutter, code 245R. Find a supermarket meat department, grocery store, or butcher shop willing to sponsor you, register the apprenticeship with Skilled Trades Ontario, and work through a single level that combines 3,460 hours on the job with 540 hours of in-school training, 4,000 hours in total. There is no certifying exam at the end. Skilled Trades Ontario issues a Certificate of Apprenticeship, and that certificate is the highest certification this trade offers. Skilled Trades Ontario does list a Retail Meat Cutter apprenticeship, so this slot ships: the kill condition in the batch slate, no apprenticeship listed, does not apply. The no-exam outcome is the point to absorb first, because it changes what completion means here.
The name is exact. The Ontario trade name is Retail Meat Cutter, code 245R. The batch slate and this guide's title shorten it to Meat Cutter. Use the full name, Retail Meat Cutter, whenever a form asks for the trade, and use code 245R to remove any remaining doubt. The word Retail is not decoration. It states where the work happens: the retail market, at the counter and the display case, not at a packing plant.
The scope is Skilled Trades Ontario's own description, and it is narrower than the job titles floating around it. A Retail Meat Cutter prepares meat and poultry for the retail market by demonstrating safe working practices and techniques, applying general work practices and merchandising, setting up and operating machinery, performing business practices and customer relations, and preparing beef cuts, pork cuts, lamb cuts, veal cuts, and poultry cuts, plus preparing meat for sausage making. That list is the trade. Fish and shellfish are not on it, and wholesale and industrial plant work are not on it either. Job Bank's National Occupational Classification 65202 groups meat cutters with fishmongers, and its National Occupational Classification 63201 groups retail and wholesale butchers separately, while National Occupational Classification 94141 covers industrial butchers and meat cutters in plants. Those groupings describe occupations nationally. They do not widen the Ontario trade. If a posting describes fish cutting or plant work as the main job, it is describing different work from this registration, whatever title it uses.
The voluntary point matters too. Retail Meat Cutter is a non-compulsory trade in Ontario. Nobody needs a licence or certificate to cut meat for retail sale in this province, and you can work in the trade without ever registering. The apprenticeship is not permission to work. It is structured training, a training standard of signed-off skills, and the Certificate of Apprenticeship at the end. Because there is no certifying exam, there is also no Certificate of Qualification to earn and no Trade Equivalency Assessment route for experienced workers in this trade. Skilled Trades Ontario says so directly on the trade information page. An experienced retail meat cutter who wants formal recognition of time already worked should ask Skilled Trades Ontario what, if anything, the apprenticeship route credits, rather than assuming a challenge exam exists. This guide states no credit rule, because no opened Skilled Trades Ontario page states one for this trade.
The sponsor comes first. Skilled Trades Ontario is clear that an apprenticeship begins when you sign a Training Agreement with a sponsor and register it, and that finding a sponsor is the key first step. A sponsor can be an individual employer, such as a supermarket meat department, a grocery store, or a butcher shop, or a group of employers, such as a union or consortium.
The application steps, from Skilled Trades Ontario's start-an-apprenticeship page, are:
The program totals 4,000 hours: 3,460 hours of on-the-job training and 540 hours of in-school training in one level. The June 2026 chart publishes the split and the level count without a calendar length or an in-school subject list, so this guide states neither. What is fixed is the split and the level count from the chart, and the scope of work from the trade description: safe practices, merchandising, machinery setup and operation, business practices and customer relations, and the five cut families, beef, pork, lamb, veal, and poultry, plus sausage preparation.
The rhythm is work, then the in-school block, then work again. Depending on the training delivery agency, in-school training may run as block release, day release, part-time, or alternative delivery such as online or correspondence, the delivery forms Skilled Trades Ontario lists for its apprenticeship programs generally. Attend when invited through the training system, keep your logbook current, and make sure your recorded hours match what your sponsor reports. Retail cutting punishes careless setup in a way that shows up at the counter: a saw set up wrong or a cut trimmed carelessly wastes product and disappoints the customer standing in front of the case, which is why the training standard skills around safe practices, machinery, and merchandising exist together.
There is no Step 3 exam for this trade, and the guide does not invent one. When you complete the apprenticeship program, Skilled Trades Ontario issues a Certificate of Apprenticeship. That certificate is the highest level of certification available for Retail Meat Cutter. No certifying exam follows, no Certificate of Qualification is issued, and no Red Seal endorsement applies: the June 2026 chart records no Red Seal endorsement for 245R. Job Bank's statement for the national group, that an apprenticeship program in meat cutting is available but voluntary and that trade certification for meat cutter is available but voluntary in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, describes other provinces' arrangements. It does not create an Ontario examination or certificate. In Ontario, completion of this program is the credential, and the credential is the Certificate of Apprenticeship.
Do not assume this registration covers fish cutting, plant cutting, or wholesale butchery. Those sit in other National Occupational Classification groups and outside the Skilled Trades Ontario scope list for this trade. Do not wait for an exam date that does not exist, and do not pay anyone for exam preparation for a 245R certifying exam. There is none. Do not confuse this trade with the butcher occupation in National Occupational Classification 63201, whose Job Bank requirements describe several years of on-the-job training in food stores for retail butchers. That is an occupation description, not this trade's program. The program here is 4,000 hours in one level, with the scope listed above. Do not let months of counter work go unrecorded. Unrecorded hours are hours you may have to work again, so keep the logbook signed and the hours submitted. And do not pay for a course that promises a Certificate of Qualification in this trade. Skilled Trades Ontario issues no such certificate for 245R, and the certificate it does issue comes on completion of the program, not through a private training provider alone.
Retail Meat Cutter, trade code 245R. That is the Ontario trade name exactly as Skilled Trades Ontario lists it in the apprenticeship programs chart and on the trade information page. The batch slate and this guide's title shorten it to Meat Cutter, but the registration name is Retail Meat Cutter, and the word Retail is part of the scope: this trade prepares meat and poultry for the retail market. When a form asks for the trade, put down Retail Meat Cutter 245R. The national occupation that covers retail meat cutting work is Meat cutters and fishmongers, retail and wholesale, National Occupational Classification 65202, a group that also covers fish work that is not part of this trade's Skilled Trades Ontario scope.
The program is 4,000 hours: 3,460 hours of on-the-job work experience and 540 hours of in-school training, delivered in one level. This guide states no calendar length, because the June 2026 chart, the source used for the hours split, publishes hours and levels without a calendar length. Job Bank describes on-the-job training in food stores as usually offered to meat cutters and fishmongers for retail sale, without giving a Retail Meat Cutter program length of its own. The hours are the fixed part; the calendar time follows how steadily the meat department work comes and when the in-school block runs.
No to both. Retail Meat Cutter 245R is non-compulsory in Ontario. You do not need to be a registered apprentice or a certificate holder to cut meat for retail sale in this province, though registration is still how you get the structured training and the Certificate of Apprenticeship. There is no certifying exam in this trade. Skilled Trades Ontario states that plainly on the trade information page: on completion of the apprenticeship program it issues a Certificate of Apprenticeship, which is the highest level of certification available for the trade, it issues no Certificate of Qualification, and it cannot accept Trade Equivalency Assessment applications for this trade. Because the trade is non-compulsory, a certificate holder's information does not appear on the Skilled Trades Ontario Public Register.
Grade 12 is the academic entry grade listed in the Skilled Trades Ontario apprenticeship programs chart for Retail Meat Cutter 245R. Skilled Trades Ontario also requires apprentices to be at least 16 years old, to have legal permission to work in Canada, and to have a sponsor in Ontario. Job Bank phrases the national requirement for the retail meat cutting group more loosely: completion of secondary school may be required. The chart entry governs the Ontario registration, so treat Grade 12 as the entry grade a sponsor will expect. Food safety habits, safe machinery practices, and comfort working in cold rooms are worth arriving with, since the trade description starts with safe working practices.
First find a sponsor, an employer or group sponsor responsible for your training, such as a supermarket meat department, a grocery store, or a butcher shop. Then apply: if you are 18 or older, apply online through the Skilled Trades Ontario Portal; if you are 16 or 17, or you cannot apply online, complete the paper Application for Apprenticeship Training, signed by you, a parent or guardian if you are under 18, and your sponsor, and submit it to Skilled Trades Ontario. Once approved, you and your sponsor sign a Training Agreement, which registers you as an apprentice, and you receive a Registered Apprentice Wallet Card. Download the Apprenticeship Training Standard Logbook and keep it signed as you demonstrate each skill.
Only as Skilled Trades Ontario draws the scope. The trade description says a Retail Meat Cutter prepares meat and poultry for the retail market: safe working practices, general work practices and merchandising, setting up and operating machinery, business practices and customer relations, and preparing beef, pork, lamb, and veal cuts, poultry cuts, and meat for sausage making. Fish and shellfish do not appear in that list. Job Bank groups fishmongers with meat cutters in National Occupational Classification 65202, and groups retail and wholesale butchers separately in National Occupational Classification 63201. Neither grouping changes the Ontario trade scope. If the work you want is fish preparation, industrial plant cutting, or wholesale butchery, confirm which registration, if any, covers it before assuming this apprenticeship does.
Where a figure could not be verified on a Skilled Trades Ontario or Job Bank page at the time of writing — any calendar length for the program, any in-school subject list, any examination or assessment fee, and any wage figure — this guide says so and points to the Skilled Trades Ontario trade page instead of carrying a secondary source's figure. Check that page before you pay anything or plan around a date. One conflict is disclosed rather than resolved silently: an older Skilled Trades Ontario archive listing for this trade carries an inactive-program notice saying no new registrations are accepted, while the current trade-information page and the June 2026 chart list the program as administered by Skilled Trades Ontario. The current trade page governs, and the reader should confirm on that page that registrations are open before applying. No figure in this guide comes from the butcher or industrial meat cutting occupations, whose Job Bank pages describe different work.