EDMONTON - As the meat recall from Edmonton-based XL Foods plant continues to grow, so is consumer concern. But not everyone is avoiding Alberta beef. In fact, some are just turning to local butchers for their fix.
"You don't ever want to make money off people's misfortune but we've been very busy," says Dave Vanleeuwen, of Ben's Meats & Deli. "We're very, very happy because of it."
Vanleeuwen admits that he's been receiving a lot of calls lately from people concerned about ground beef.
"But I try to reassure them we grind fresh here everyday."
"Yesterday, we ground three extra times than we normally would...We just keep selling out. We have to grind more and more because people are coming in for our ground beef."
Some are becoming a little apprehensive, though.
"It makes you want to become a vegetarian," customer Laura Aydin says with a laugh. "Meat is scary now. It doesn't matter what kind - pork and beef, and all of those meats. You have be careful how you cook, and where you buy it."
John Brown of St. Albert Ranches, which supplies Ben's Meats with its product, is quick to point out that even though people should be concerned about food safety, he believes our province actually has strict controls when it comes to meat.
"People get scared and sometimes over-react when, basically, food in our country is extremely safe," he says.
For loyal customers of Ben's Meats & Deli like Monica Collins, where you get your meat makes a difference.
"It's always safe here, always," she says.
Despite some local butchers seeing a boost in business thanks to trusting customers, Garth McClintock, the owner and publisher of Alberta Beef Magazine has a hard time believing this recent recall can be good in any way for Alberta's beef and cattle industry.
"We've lost a buyer who buys about half the cattle," he explains.
He thinks prices for beef producers will fall, because Cargill, the one big packing plant still open, will no longer face competition for supply.
"The longer this goes on, the worse it's going to become."
Longview rancher Phil Rowland, president of the Western Stockgrowers Association, adds that the shutdown of the XL plant is going to mean lower prices when cattle goes to auction, because the plant processed almost half of all Alberta's beef.
"There's going to be downward pressure, price-wise. I think 43 per cent of the kill in Alberta is at Lakeside. There aren't a lot of other options," Rowland said. "I think the feedlot guys are feeling the pressure right now. They've got cattle ready to go, so they're going to feel the pressure first. But the big run hasn't started yet."
Rowland said he's also worried about the psychological impact of the mass recall on the reputation of Alberta beef, in Canada and internationally, and what it might be for future sales.
"Sure, that's a concern. I guess the bigger concern to me was that it was the U.S. inspectors who found the problem first, and not someone from the CFIA," he said. "Nothing good can come from this, at least in the short term. In the long term, when XL has its act together again, maybe we can take action to make sure something like this never happens again."
With files from Kendra Slugoski, Global News and Postmedia News
© Global News. A division of Shaw Media Inc., 2012.