The upscale "farm to door" Belcampo Meat Co., based in San Francisco's Bay Area, claims they offer organic, grass-fed, local "meat you can trust — transparency from start to finish." But on Sunday, Evan, a former employee of their Santa Monica shop, posted a video on Instagram (below) showing us that at least some of their meat and chicken are not always organic, grass-fed, from their own farms, or, for that matter, even local. "They're fucking lying to you," he says.
In the video, Evan displays $47.99/pound plastic-wrapped tenderloin from Tasmania, Mary's Chicken (sold at Whole Foods), factory-farmed National Beef (from Kansas City, Missouri), and boxes of frozen Pasturebird poultry. "I apologize to all the customers that I lied to for the past 2 and a half years in order to keep my job," he said.
Evan, who started noticing Belcampo's outside products last fall, was let go last week after working for the company for 2 1/2 years, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
From The Guardian:
In a statement to the Guardian, the company co-founder Anya Fernald described the issue as an "isolated incident at the Santa Monica Butcher Shop".
Fernald said that individual Belcampo butcher shops have "a small degree of autonomy when it comes to sourcing products for their local customer base or when there are supply shortages on certain items.
"The preliminary results of our investigation show that unfortunately protocols both for sourcing and communicating product origin to customers were not being followed in our Santa Monica location. These errors made up a small percentage of total product," she added.
