Interview the owners of the Local Butcher in Berkeley and discuss challenges of providing local, sustainable meat
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1:Method to the madness is next.
Speaker 2:You're listening to method to the madness. Eight Biweekly Public Affairs show on k a l x celebrating bay area innovators. [00:00:30] Welcome to the program. Aaron and Monica are Kino. I wanted to talk
Speaker 1:do you about some of the challenges of the meat industry. You have the local butcher shop in the gourmet ghetto here in Berkeley. First of all, why did you call it the local butcher?
Speaker 3:It's a double entendre really. I mean, we wanted to be part of the community and, and build community around our shops. So we wanted to literally be the local butcher. And then we also source all of our meat [00:01:00] from within 150 miles of Berkeley. So that's how we define the term local. All of our products come from within that boundary. So everything we sell is also local.
Speaker 1:It's like an, it's an easy name that kind of hearkens back like my parents having a local butcher. Oh yeah. We also figured if we [inaudible]
Speaker 3:called it row Kinos, nobody would be able to pronounce it.
Speaker 1:And you know, or remembering well, so you both have very deep roots in the food industry that you were a chef at Chez Panisse. Aaron. I did. I cooked downstairs [00:01:30] or six years. Yeah. Working side by side with all of those people. It's just, it was an amazing experience. Yeah. And you, you weren't a chef, but can we talk a little bit about what you used to do Cheryl? I started
Speaker 3:and in production mode, building kitchens onsite for special events, whether it was an existing kitchen or in the middle of a football field or a forest, you know, and making five star restaurant quality food in the middle of nowhere. And then later on, after I had my own business planning events in Italy [00:02:00] for Americans, a went back to Paula Duke in sales and wrote Menus and sold events and
Speaker 1:both worked at Alavetto. And that's where you met. Did you meet over carcass of beef or wow. No. How did that happened? We met in the stairwell. Yeah, it was so romantic. I know that stairwell. So what were you doing at Olivette? Were you a chef there as well? I was cooking there and I had been at Alvito for six months for an internship and then I left after [00:02:30] finishing my internship to go back and finish up school. After I was done, I was offered a job back at all of Eto. I was working with Paul Canalis at the time, um, and Paul Bertolli was also Scheffing there. It was such a great experience for me coming from Allentown, Pennsylvania, being able to get connected with the local farmers and whether it was produce or meat, being able to meet those people coming in through the back door with the things that we were then going to put on the menu. So that was your first exposure to that kind of local farmer coming in with [00:03:00] their meat. And so things started to click for me.
Speaker 3:I started there right after he left. I started working there as a Barista and an am waitress server. That's when I started my company to do events in Italy and so I needed some money to pay the rent and I wanted to increase my Italian vocabulary, especially around food and food knowledge. I figured that was a really great place to start and then kind of worked my way through the front of the house, all the different positions. And um, really the position I enjoyed the most [00:03:30] was the food runner position because I got to stand up in the kitchen for the majority of my shift and see what was going on and how everything was put together. And Anyway, I had been there, I don't know, maybe six months or something. And then this new guy comes and he really seemed to know what he was doing and knew who everyone was. And I was like, who is this guy? What's his deal?
Speaker 1:You had similar philosophies about sustainability of food and or what did you learn together about that? I mean, I know for me Italian food was [00:04:00] really important, still is and it seemed like we had that connection just from what she likes to eat and the background of her doing events in Italy, all that stuff was really interesting to me. But also she knew her way around here, California and I didn't know and we got a chance to just kind of go and see and do things together. It was all new to me. It was all those things that just kind of kept us interested. What was the point where you decided, I want to start my own butcher shop? I was waiting [00:04:30] later on down the line as
Speaker 3:much later. Yeah, so Aaron had been at Shea for six years and I was with Paula Duke and we had totally opposite schedules. It got to the point where we were like, we want to stay in the food industry. We need to see more of each other. What should we do? And we rolled out a restaurant or owning a cafe because that would just bring about the same schedule. And there's also such a plethora where we're so overwhelmed in a good way with wonderful cafes and restaurants in this area. There really isn't [00:05:00] a need for yet another. And so we started thinking about what we really needed in our lives and what was missing. And we realized that what was missing was the only way that we could find meat that we could really trust. And that was delicious, uh, was for Aaron to bring it home from the restaurant because you go to the, we go to the supermarket and there's stickers and stamps and labels all over everything.
Speaker 3:And nobody really knows what any of it means or where any of it's coming from or how it's been handled. And, and we figured if we were having that problem and we had [00:05:30] like the best access of anybody we knew then everybody was having that problem. And so because they do whole animal butchery at shape pennies and, and likewise that all eto, Aaron had had 10 years or so to culminate relationships with all the ranchers and farmers that supplied both of those restaurants. So we called them all up and ask them if they would be interested in selling their product to us to sell retail. At the time, they were strictly wholesale to restaurants and they all said yes, they were all on [00:06:00] board because essentially we were being their salespeople for them. We were committing to buying their product and then it was up to us to sell it.
Speaker 1:So how did the restaurants feel about you using their meat? It wasn't that I was taking away any of the meat that they would originally get. Plus, you know, we were in a restaurant and it's just another way for them to be able to market themselves. Exactly. Support the family, support the farmer. And I think that was a big thing. Like it's huge to be able to feel that connection and then knowing that we're helping to support the community [00:06:30] and the people who are actually raising these animals instead of getting meat from a styrofoam tray, not really knowing where it originated. It's that connection that really makes you feel better about what you're buying. You're able to stand behind it, you believe in it, and then it all ends up tasting better.
Speaker 3:And we get a lot of restaurant folk buying from us. Well that's for their homes. Like Alice Waters comes in regularly, you know, like, and cooks and chefs from all over the bay area will come because not everybody can just take or buy [00:07:00] from their own restaurants, stockpile, you know, but they want that quality and they want that flavor. And so we're really the the only place that they can come together.
Speaker 1:It's also good for the restaurants as like a last minute, I'm out of this or I'm, do you have any more of whatever that you can supply us. So how do you handle that? Because you'd buy entire animals when you run out, you run out, right. And they're out of luck if you're, if you've run out. Exactly. Typically for something like a wholesale thing, we, for Shay for [00:07:30] example, we've worked out this holistic way of being able to use up the whole animal. So for dinner one night there might be revise or New York's on the menu, but then another part of the menu, a different time of the week might be braised chuck or short ribs or brisket. Being able to eat different parts of the animal instead of always just wanting for lay or always just wanting New York's or for rabbis, we're able to work out this kind of system so that it kind of evens out enough and so [00:08:00] it also, yeah, it does take away a little bit from the shop, but what do you do about that? Are you educating your customers? Right. Well, what can you, what else can you do with these other parts of them?
Speaker 3:It's kind of a two part thing. First of all, we do very little wholesale because we opened to get restaurant quality meat into home cooks kitchens, not into restaurant kitchens. I mean shape needs is really our main account that we just do the before, but beyond that we're pretty much 99% retail. To answer your question [00:08:30] about what do we do when we run out of cuts, because there are a finite number of cuts per animal. Each one of our butchers is a trained chef trained cook, and so when we do run out of something and we can't go in the back end, just open up another box of whatever it is, the butchers start asking a lot of questions like, how are you going to cook it? How many people are you looking to feed? Fancy casual, you know, and they really try and get an understanding of what your goal was and then they're going to steer the customer towards an alternative cut that's going to work [00:09:00] equally well for what the customer is trying to do
Speaker 4:and also help them understand how to cook.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. We don't price each individual cut a different price. We've done that to try to encourage people eating cuts that maybe they're not so familiar with and not being discouraged by price
Speaker 4:or do you think it's lesser? Right.
Speaker 1:Sometimes somebody comes in asking for something specific and they're asking for that cut because our recipe calls for it or because that's what they've always used in the past. [00:09:30] But there are so many different cuts on each animal that you can get a similar type of consistency or the flavor or the method of cooking. You can find those things in other cuts that aren't specific to that one individual. Cut.
Speaker 4:One of the things I read, I think it was you, Monica, you, it was an interview with you. You were, you said your meat was more kosher than kosher.
Speaker 3:I was speaking to the intent of the kosher and route rules and lies and uh, it's my personal belief that the intent was [00:10:00] to keep the integrity of the animal's life held at the highest level possible to have it eat what it's supposed to be eating, have access to pasture and be out on pasture and to be humanely slaughtered. And the majority of kosher slaughter houses in this country, if not ob, are dealing with feed lot animals. Feed that, be for sure commercial, industrial, lamb. And just because the method of their slaughter is the kosher method. Sys of the knife across the neck, [00:10:30] and it's under the surveillance of a rabbi with a prayer, therefore it's kosher. But the life cycle of that animal was anything but kosher. And so what I was trying to say was that all of our meat, all of the animals were raised with them,
Speaker 4:integrity and humanely raised and humanely slaughtered, but they weren't kosher slaughtered. But in my estimation, the intent, the, uh, attention to their welfare makes them more kosher than kosher me [00:11:00] right now, a very big challenge recently, as you know, is the Rancho Rancho Feeding Corporation, the slaughter house that they recalled a point 7 million pounds of beef on February 8th. That's a big challenge, I'm sure, to your local farmers because some of the local farmers use that. It's the only northern California slaughterhouse, at least within 150 miles. Right. So the closest, the closest depression or even that many in the state of California, something like 23. Yeah. How did that challenge affect you guys?
Speaker 1:It's a big deal. A lot of the smaller farmers, it's [00:11:30] their outlet to get their meat to individuals. You know, whether it's something for a CSA box that they put together that people come to pickup or for meat that is sold at farmer's markets. A lot of these farmers don't have the quantity of animals to take in at one time that some of these other solder houses are requiring the minimum of head of beef to go through in order for that to happen. So then it makes it even more challenging because then one farmer has to get together with another farmer and another farmer. [00:12:00] Rancho was really great when that way is that they would take just a few head at a time. Maybe you can explain the whole slaughterhouse thing and how that affects local farmers because they have to go through it, right. For Ag Department,
Speaker 3:so farmers can't sell meat that has been slaughtered on their own property period. The only way that they can get around it is if they sell the animal live to a customer and then the customer pays for an Avatar to come to their property [00:12:30] and slaughter the meat. And butcher it. So that's how some of the really small CSA meat boxes do it. The customer's actually purchasing a live animal. The other way is the farmer can have meat for themselves and their family slaughtered on their own ranch. Any other meat that's being sold has to be slaughtered in a USDA certified slaughterhouse. In order for any rancher to sell either wholesale to a restaurant or two-ish supermarket or even directly to [00:13:00] consumers in CSA meat boxes or at the farmer's market, the meat has to be slaughtered at USDA certified solder house. And what that means is that there's a USDA inspector on site at the slaughterhouse.
Speaker 3:Whenever soldering is happening, they have an office, they have a parking spot and there their inspectors rotate. I don't know if it's quarterly or yearly, I'm not sure, but it's in order. There's always someone there. So the information that's been put out thus far has been extremely vague and we [00:13:30] really don't know the exact details. What we do know is that apparently, well, Rancho divides their soldering days. Some days they do what's called custom meat, which is all of these local small ranchers bring in two to 12 head of cattle a day and they kind of puzzle piece them together and and make sure that the whole day is filled with small ranchers cattle. Then other days they do more commercial cattle, which is mostly in [00:14:00] because of their proximity in Petaluma to the dairy industry. It's mostly dairy cows that have reached the end of their productivity and in milk production that are being slaughtered that then go and are sold as commercial beef, which is the type of beef that will be found in hot pockets, for example. So supermarkets. Yeah, absolutely. So there's absolutely never any crossover between custom meat and commercial meat
Speaker 1:peer in day to day. At the end of the day, and even throughout the day, [00:14:30] there's cleanings that happens. There's no cross contamination, there's no opportunity, live or
Speaker 3:slaughtered. So even as the animals are waiting and holding to go into the slaughterhouse, there is no crossover. There's no way for the commercial beef to come in contact with the custom beef at any point.
Speaker 1:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to method
Speaker 4:to the madness at biweekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley. Today I'm interviewing Monica and Aaron Roci, no [00:15:00] owners of the local butcher in north Berkeley. They're discussing the challenges of bringing local sustainable meat products from farm to table.
Speaker 3:What we understand is that two of the dairy cattle were slaughtered without being inspected before they were slaughtered. Part of the inspection routine is to inspect the live animal before it's slaughtered. Either it wasn't done, it wasn't documented correctly. We're not really sure, and as a result, the first recall happened, [00:15:30] which recalled the meat from, I believe it was January 1st through January 13th that was the first one, the first recall, and then I guess upon further inspections of the USDA inspectors work, they found that maybe there had been more animals that were not inspected before slaughter, I'm assuming. And so as a result, the USDA punished the USDA inspector by ultimately punishing Rancho [00:16:00] and olive ranches customers by recalling every bit of meat, every bit of beef that was processed there. Between January 1st and December 31st, 2013 it's amazing. It's amazing. And the thing is, it's a huge number. It catches everybody's eye. Not One case of illness had been reported and 99% of that beef has already been consumed. The only thing we had in our shop that was from that beef was our hot dogs that BN ranch makes for us with their 2013 slaughtered [00:16:30] animal. But other than that, everything else was consumed and it was all delicious.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think bill and Nicolette, I've kind of taken this on themselves, which is awesome. And their book defending beef,
Speaker 3:New York Times, and as we saw that, but they, I feel like they're in a unique situation amongst our local farmers because they only slaughter beef in this summer and early fall and they sought her a lot and they freeze [00:17:00] it with the intent of selling the rest of it throughout the rest of the year. So they had a good amount of beef that was frozen, waiting to be sold that they had to then. That was part of the recall. Most of the local farmers don't have the resources or the stockpile of that amount. Most of the local farmers will slaughter regularly throughout the year and if they don't, if they only are soldering through the summer and fall, which is prime beef season, [00:17:30] then they're freezing. It's not anywhere near that quantities of frozen meat as BN ranch in her room, her
Speaker 1:book with, she says it's financially devastating. It's wasteful, but the third thing was so poignant because they know their cows individually. Apparently a lot of these local farmers do. She felt like it was sacrilegious to that animal because they
Speaker 3:knew them by name. They walk them to their death. They were there when they're born
Speaker 1:and to just throw away their meat, their lives. Yeah. It's what I was going to say too is that the people [00:18:00] that we get our meat from are the farmers, the ones who raise these animals, they're the ones who pick them out, load them on to the trailer and are taken to the slaughterhouse. So when they show up, they're in perfect health and perfect condition. Like they're picked out specifically because they have a home and the ranch or the farm name is connected to this meat and the quality. So the opposite end of that is to load up a trailer [00:18:30] of animals that are done with their production and we need to move them somewhere. There's a big difference.
Speaker 3:How many kinds of animals do you guys have in your shop? Beef, pork, lamb, goat, chicken, duck, Turkey squad, pigeon, rabbit, quail. And you also sell dog food. And can you talk about also you sell soap and where do you get that? And we make,
Speaker 1:can we make it so from the tallow? So it's part [00:19:00] of what we, you also is important to us is just to utilize the whole animal. So it's not fair to take, uh, these lives and to just throw trim and fat and bones to waste. A way to, to get as much out of it is to use up everything. So making soups and stocks and stews and dog food and soap and treats and cookies and all kinds of charcuterie. And a sandwich, those kinds of things. They're all [00:19:30] outlets for us to use up the whole animal. So the soap is made out of the tallow. Do you guys actually make it? Yeah, we make it. We make it at the shop. Yeah. So you can render it. There's just so many different things that you can do with it. Well, with all parts of it and it's wasteful to throw anything away.
Speaker 3:Well, it's also economically wasteful because we pay one price per pound to the farmer. We are paying the same price for bones and fat that we paid for tenderloin. So to us, the entire animal has equal value. [00:20:00] Every piece that goes in the trash or in the compost is money lost. So whatever we can do to create something out of the quote unquote waste helps us to regain our trust. Actually kind have an indigenous, it's an old idea in parts of the state, the sacred nature. There's nothing about what we do that we made up. It's all been done before. We're just going back to it. I'm sure you also get a lot of flack about meat in general. A lot of people don't eat meat here. [00:20:30] They feel that it's an energy consumer and we'll, we'll, there's a lot of political, social and cultural.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Challenges. I mean that a lot of it is valid for sure. And because we own a butcher shop, we're not pushing on anybody to eat meat every day of the week, every meal. We don't eat meat every day of the week. And so it's, if you're getting good quality meat, you don't have to eat as much of it. And it's good for you.
Speaker 3:Big proponents of eating higher [00:21:00] quality meat and less of it. When you do have meat, you should be getting the best quality meat you can possibly get, which is where it comes, which is going to cost more than not knowing where it comes from. You know, we're big proponents of bending a little more, getting a little less, but eating less of less of what you're getting. The grass based pasture raised a hundred percent pasture-raised meats, you know, they help the ecosystem. We're not talking about giant feed, lots full of beef or animals that are shoulder to [00:21:30] shoulder. And we're talking about firearms where the animals are roaming and they're part of the ecosystem and they help the grasses grow and by mowing them, you know, they're the natural lawnmowers and, and their excrement helps the, the animals and the insects and everything to break down and, and to biodegrade into nutrients for the next round of grasses to grow. And yeah,
Speaker 1:one of our farmers grows produce and beans and all kinds of things on, on the land that he has. Part of his [00:22:00] rotation is when he goes to harvest the crops, he then brings in the pigs to tell the land for him. And so it's like, it's just this natural cycle, you know, he lets them do their thing. They're, they're super happy. They get to eat all of like the roots and things and bugs that we're all happy and alive when the crop was growing and then they tell it and then it's ready for the next round of whatever he wants to plant in that area. You talked to [inaudible] farmers too. They will kind of consider themselves [00:22:30] grass farmers more than anything else because that's what provides the food to the cows. But if they don't manage the land properly, they're not going to have feed.
Speaker 1:Right. They're not going to have the grass for the animals. So it's being able to know why, where, when and how to take care of this land and then the animals come in there. They're just there. Part of it. Right Cycle. Exactly. It's really beautiful. Yeah. Some animals need additional feed, whether it's chickens or pigs, but we [00:23:00] have worked with our farmers in the past and we're now at a point that any additional feed is non GMO or are they growing on the property itself? Right. And then they're able to turn that into their own feed. Yeah. It's important to us too that if there's additional fee that it's, it's clean just because they're out on pastured and if you're still feeding them crappy feed, then what's the point? Yeah. You're eating that. You're very near to large supermarkets.
Speaker 3:The gourmet ghetto itself worth with the cheeseboard and, and [00:23:30] the produce center. And it's a place where people go to do their shopping in the farmers markets there on Thursday, we certainly saw the supermarkets being an added bonus and a integrative, um, part of our business model because we didn't want to be a supermarket. We didn't want to offer everything, but we knew that for convenience, somebody who's going to get all of their dry goods and staples across the street who wants to come and then get their meat with us is far more likely to do it in one stop. [00:24:00] Then having to get back in their car or even to walk, you know, three blocks away. It's a pretty unique situation that we're in. Yeah,
Speaker 1:it's great to have them as neighbors. You have this one location. Do you have plans for growth? We've had people come up to us and ask us, so can you open a store in wherever [inaudible] yeah, exactly. And then, and since we're now just little over two and a half years old, it's still feels too new to really even [00:24:30] think about that. We want to definitely build a solid foundation before we do any kind of other location or even Er. Right, exactly. So we, we've been talking about doing some sort of CSA meet box kind of thing. We're just kind of getting things together on that.
Speaker 3:We're looking to maybe expand in sense of a production kitchen somewhere off site just because our kitchen space is so small and for the amount of value added products that we are making and the number of [00:25:00] animals that we are going through a week space is becoming our
Speaker 1:go through in a week, depends on the week, but there's almost a holiday every month. Each holiday has a very specific type of meat or cut, so you have to be ready for that. Right? Right, exactly. So on a regular kind of week we'll do two to three beef each week and then we can do anywhere from like six to eight pegs, six lamb. Then
Speaker 3:all of them do it differently. Chickens. Yeah, it varies. So you for sure learn. How do [00:25:30] you balance that with the seasonality of some of these mates?
Speaker 1:Can, I have a lot of conversations with our farmers, how weather can affect the animals and from even from week to week. So there's a lot of adjusting and a lot of just kind of making things happen
Speaker 3:can, can't just ask for beef last minute, right? It takes over, you know, well over a year to even grow beef. So you can't all of a sudden be like, oh actually next week I need another, you know, I need a third or fourth.
Speaker 1:It's our job to help inform the customer. [00:26:00] That's kind of like our day to day job is to be available and to give any of this information to the customers that walking in the shop or that want to take a couple extra minutes to hear about the drought, how it's affecting our [inaudible]
Speaker 3:or whatever. We always say ev, every, every transaction is a, is an opportunity for education. The majority of customers are coming to us because they want that individualized attention and they're giving us an opportunity to, to pass along a message and to talk about [00:26:30] our philosophies and to express our passion for what we do. And for the farmers and for the, for the land. And we get to read how much they want to know and what they might know or what their main, and we learn from them as well. You know, we certainly are in a highly highly educated demographic zone here. So
Speaker 1:sometimes somebody will ask us something and we may not know the answer, but it's just a phone call away. And that's also what's really cool about what we do, is that I can call [00:27:00] the farmer and be like, Hey, what do you know about this? Or what happens when this happens? Or like what do you think about this? And I can find out immediately not having to worry about going through a distributor who will then maybe get in touch with somebody else who eventually will get to the farmer. You know, we feel like we want to be educated enough so that we can have our customers trust us. And that's important to us. I'm from Pennsylvania, [00:27:30] from Allentown, and I grew up with food being the complete opposite as to what I think food is now. And that was, well a lot of fast food.
Speaker 1:It was all out of convenience, but I would spend the summers with my grandfather and my grandmother that have a fully functional farm and I would do farm work and we would take care of the animals and feed them and Bale Hay and like everything that needs to happen on the farm. And [00:28:00] they would always push these ideas on me of like trying to eat local and get what you can from your land and just like really old school ways. I got to learn a lot, but it was totally foreign to me. And then I came out here and I started to get to work with the farmers and being able to see them walk in the back door with a product and then be able to use that on the menu. That's where it clicked for me. And so then all of a sudden they were the only normal people [00:28:30] in my family and everybody else was really weird.
Speaker 4:You grew up in northern California? I did. I grew up in Marine county. So you probably were born with all this knowledge and we certainly didn't eat
Speaker 3:at home with a local bend or an organic bend or anything like that. My parents were east coast transplants and it didn't occur to me the connection between food and land really until I got an opportunity to live in Italy for a year during college. That being said, though, the deep connection [00:29:00] to the land that I was surrounded with certainly had a huge impact on me. It wasn't until, you know, I was in Italy that I really understood that a tomato shouldn't be like that orangy color and you know, and that, that there were seasons to produce and, and seasonality to cooking and, and how it all tied together with the environment.
Speaker 4:Aaron and Monica, I'm afraid that's all the time we have today, but I want to thank you for being on the program. Thank you. Thank you. It's my pleasure. You've been listening to method [00:29:30] to the madness. I'm Lisa keeper. Tune in again in two weeks at the same time. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] [00:30:00] okay.
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