Respectfully, think we have really different priors, perspectives, and assumptions on this.
Maybe I misunderstand their business model, but their whole brand is vertically integrated, âwe sell what we grow.â Not sure why there would be a policy for sourcing and labeling beyond what does HQ have in stock? I mean, wasnât sourcing and labeling supposed to come directly from BelCampo farms? Theyâre not a multi label shop like McCallâs. Why would individual stores even have the option to go to third parties? That contradicts everything about their brand and advertising.
To me Occamâs Razor here is they knew, it happened for a while, and they condoned it/looked the other way. It does remind me of Theranos. And as far as heuristics go, the first time caught is almost always not the first time committing the crime, though thatâs what everyone claims after theyâre caught.
I do appreciate your comment though. We just see it really differently!
This is not a matter of speculation, Belcampo has admitted it. Without third-party suppliers, they would constantly be out of stock of the most in-demand items, such as chicken breasts and beef tenderloin. Yeah, itâs contrary to their brand, but itâs also a practical response to the bad business model of tying a restaurant to a single supplier. There are meat-counter photos online where you can see non-Belcampo items clearly labeled, e.g. Batali charcuterie.
Plus Belcamo produces only meat,so there were necessarily going to be a lot of local suppliers for dairy, veg, baked goods, beer, wine, liquor, etc.
Corporate management wishfully turning a blind eye certainly seems like a possibility.
The meat coming from the farm needed to be purchased by the restaurants and butcher shops, akin to any wholesale account, says one former Belcampo chef, and that meat came with a higher price tag than products from other suppliers. As a result, employees allege, financial managers decided that it would be beneficial to begin to routinely source outside meat from local restaurant suppliers rather than order it exclusively from Belcampo Farms.
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Reiner says a new financial manager was hired to watch over the storeâs budget and, at one point, restricted the retail shopâs ordering to $2000 per week. âThe only way to fill that case with that budget was to buy from Rocker Brothers,â Reiner says.
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Two staff members tell Eater that whenever Fernald announced that she would be visiting any of the shops in Southern California, boxes and labels from distributors like Rocker Brothers or West Coast Prime were to be hidden from view before her arrival.
My guess is the company will go bankrupt and be broken up.
They got confirmation from additional current and former employees as well as from two of Belcampoâs suppliers. They established that the problem was not limited to one store. They got the name of two managers who allegedly ordered non-Belcampo meat, one of whom allegedly directed employees not to let Fernald know about it. They verified that Belcampo continued to claim that it was raising chickens on its farm after it closed its poultry operation.
Anya Fernald May be able to deny any direct knowledge of managers/corporate/finance people that may have made these decisionsâbut certainly does not absolve her any of the blame.
Seems she care more about the branding and face of belampco and paying lip service to transparency and integrity to know what was truly happening on the retail end. Employees reported she never even acknowledged them when coming into the restaurants and that she cared more about the social media influencers who had credits up to $1000/mt to spend there.
Another nice article with perspectives from meat industry experts.
The LA Times is so late on this that I wonder if they somehow dropped the ball.
Garry Embleton has been the âco-CEOâ since last August, which might mean that he was handling the day-to-day operations and Fernald was focusing on evangelism and the like.
Belcampo, which sells organic meats at a premium in boutique butcheries in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, has seen in-store butcher shop sales nearly quadruple, and online sales explode.
Anya Fernald, Belcampoâs CEO, said her company was able to handle the surge because it farms its own animals in Yreka, Calif., and owns its own small slaughterhouse, sparing it from the broader industry turmoil.
âWe control our own supply chain,â she said. âThis is a time when local butchers can really shine.â
And thatâs not the only instance of her touting belcampos supply chain during the pandemic. According to @erikafairtrade she was on IG live multiple times reassuring customers on the health of their supply chain.
The silence from major news outlets on this corporate fraud is pretty deafening.
To date, itâs not clear that anyone above local managers was involved in the fraud. I presume reporters at places like the WSJ and Business Insider are looking for credibile allegations of something more than higher-ups not paying attention.
