Four months after apologizing to consumers for mislabeling meat, Belcampo — an upscale, organic darling of the butchery world — has announced that it is shutting down most of its businesses.
“It is with a mixture of sadness and pride that Belcampo is ending our branded e-commerce, retail and restaurant operations,” a note on the website’s homepage reads. “We want to thank you for supporting our company. You inspired us to create products that were delicious and reflected a care for our global environment. We are grateful that you joined us on this journey.”
At its peak, the Oakland-based organic meat purveyor that built its reputation on transparency operated five restaurants and meat markets in California and one in New York, including sleek flagship restaurants that opened at Oakland’s Jack London Square in 2018 and at San Mateo’s Hillsdale Shopping Center in 2019.
It was a butcher at the company’s Santa Monica location who blew the whistle on purchasing practices there by posting a video on Instagram. He had worked at that location for more than two years.
“The meat @belcampomeatco is not local anymore. It is not organic. It is not grass-fed,” he said as the camera panned an array of what appeared to be non-Belcampo meats from Minnesota and Tasmania. “They are lying to your face and charging $47.99/lb. for filet that is either USDA choice and corn-fed or from a foreign country. They do not care about your health. They care about money.”
The $47.99 filet that was marketed as grass-fed was corn-fed and purchased for a little over $10 a pound, he said.
“For those of you with allergies and health conditions revolving around corn and soy — please buy elsewhere, for your own health (and money),” said the butcher, who was identified by InsideHook as Evan Reiner. He apologized for deceiving customers, explaining that he stayed at Belcampo because he needed the health insurance coverage.
Since 2012, Belcampo had told consumers that all of the meat and poultry it sells is raised on the company’s farm near Mount Shasta and butchered in Belcampo facilities.
Shortly after Reiner’s social media reveal, co-CEO and co-founder Anya Fernald taped a response to customers, calling the butcher’s video “heartbreaking for me.” She said steps had been taken to halt the practice and re-confirm sourcing policies. She said the issues affected only the Santa Monica restaurant/market.
“I deeply apologize for the mislabeling and poor sourcing in our Belcampo Santa Monica location that I learned about from a video posted by our former employee,” she said, adding that she had devoted the last decade to building customer trust and making hard choices.
In that written statement on Belcampo.com, the company stated that “our butcher shop locations have a small degree of autonomy when it comes to sourcing meats for their local customer base or when there are supply shortages on certain items. The same high standards used for our own production should be adhered to when sourcing third party products. Based on our investigation, there were multiple failures in adherence to these standards at the Santa Monica location.”
The company responded by putting a halt to all “external purchasing” at restaurants and butcher shops, launching an audit of all purchasing procedures and reviewing “internal issues of policy, training and communications that could have contributed to this issue.”
The company went on to say that the failure affected a “small percentage” of items at the Santa Monica location, with the most commonly mislabeled foods being “grass-fed and finished beef tenderloins and organic boneless, skinless chicken breasts.”
No further public announcements were made on the topic until this week.
“While we are ending e-commerce, retail and restaurant operations, the company is exploring a range of options to provide consumers with non-branded products through new distribution channels,” co-CEO Garry Embleton said in a statement. “The company’s supply chain, farm and processing facility are both best in class and we hope that there are opportunities to collaborate with companies eager to provide consumers with meat products that meet those high standards.”
Meantime, Belcampo.com ended its news announcement on the commercial website with this note: “Prices are marked down significantly and all sales are final.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com