[He briefly tenses again when the dragon acknowledges his presence, but when nothing seems to happen, he stands up properly; he didn't want to ruin his circulation when his diet was already subpar out here.]

They cool the meat down in special refrigerators. You probably know this well already, but meat picks up other odors easily and tastes different afterwards. So I guess they keep all the meat away from everything else while it ages.

With all the time and space it takes up, the meat gets priced higher when it's finally sold.