EDMONTON – When the owner of one of Alberta’s most famous steak houses complains about Alberta beef, the industry had better listen.
“What recourse do I have if a diner says ‘This steak is tough,’ than absorb the cost myself?” Tom Goodchild, owner of the Sawmill Restaurants and Hard Rock Cafe in Edmonton asked a group of beef industry leaders dur-ing a beef symposium at Edmonton’s Farmfair.
“Why in beef country is the restaurant forced to use frozen beef?” Goodchild asked the group.
Last Christmas suppliers were unable to supply the size of fresh cuts the restaurant needed and it was forced to buy frozen beef.
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Goodchild said when his restaurants order beef it doesn’t come with a guarantee it will be tender, tasty or even the same one week to the next.
The Hard Rock Cafe sells about 10,000 hamburgers a month and the three Sawmill restaurants use the equivalent of 60 tonnes of beef.
Alan Edginton, chef of the downtown Sawmill restaurant, said consistency is a big problem. “I will order Canada Grade A beef and I have no guarantee that’s what’s coming in the back door.”
When beef for prime rib arrives at the restaurant the “fat cap,” where officials at the packing plant stamp the meat with a grade, has been removed.
Trust suppliers
“We have no way of knowing. We just have to trust our suppliers,” said Edginton.
That faith is challenged when each competing supplier criticizes the other and undercuts each others’ prices, he said.
There were no answers for Goodchild or Edginton, but the complaints reached people previously unaware of the problem.
Bernie Kotelko, manager of Highland Feeders in Vegreville and a member of the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association, said he would ask about the supply problem.
