[dropcap size=big]F[/dropcap]or most Angelenos, Belcampo Meat Co. was that spot with the solid burger and expensive meat that you had to put on layaway—just in time for next year’s carne asada. The company is known for its sustainability-focused boutique butcher shops, restaurants, and online stores with several California locations.
Their whole thing was “to create meat that’s good for people, planet, and animals,” which all started at their idyllic “30,000-acre farm at the base of Mt. Shasta.” They used terms like “Climate Positive” and “Regenerative Agriculture” on their website. When it first appeared, their fancy burger was lauded by local L.A. media for its taste and transparent sourcing. The farm’s alleged philosophy was the focus in a documentary, even.
On May 23rd, Evan Reiner, L.A. butcher, and ex-employee from Belcampo Meat Co, exposed practices by the company like mislabeling and fraudulently selling meat that wasn’t from their farm. In a series of Instagram posts, he recorded himself in the fridge of the Santa Monica location and showed the various types of proteins that weren’t Belcampo products. He shows multiple beef cuts vacuum sealed with labels from wholesale beef suppliers like Rocker Bros, “USDA choice, corn fed. Bought for a little over $10/lb sold for $47.99/lb as ‘organic,’” one of the posts claims. Belcampo built a reputation for its sustainability ethos, humanely raised meat, a focus on being “good for the planet,” and most importantly, transparency.
“I'm just exposing the truth. That's all I was doing. I was just taking photos of my day-to-day shit at work, showing people what's really going on,” says Reiner. In addition to Rocker Bros, Reiner also shared photos of a Cape Grim tenderloin imported from Tasmania, a rack of beef ribs from National Beef, two boxes of chicken, one from Pasturebird, and another from Mary’s Chicken, and a Country Day turkey. Reiner also shared pictures with L.A. TACO of a rack of beef ribs from Wanderer, which is grass and barley fed.