Paul DiRienzo prepares a sandwich at DiRienzo’s Grocery on Beech Street. The store’s meat wasn’t part of a recall, but sandwich sales have declined.
The hysteria over listeria may be over, but some local delis say they are still feeling its effects, with business only starting to pick up now after wary customers found reasons to be concerned over the safety of meat.
Sales of cold meats nation-wide dropped sharply after an outbreak of the listeria bacterium was identified in processed meat produced at a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto in August.
Maple Leaf reported that sales of their sliced meat fell 50 per cent immediately following numerous product recalls.
Listeria-related product recalls have become more or less a regular weekly occurrence, says Monica Mazur, a spokesperson for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Deli meats have been the most frequently affected products since the summer outbreak.
DiRienzo’s Grocery, a fixture on Beech Street famous for its low-priced, large sandwiches, is used to customers flocking from all over the city every day for lunch.
But following worrisome news reports about sandwich meats this past August, Kim Belanger, a store manager, says her business has definitely felt the effects.
“We did have a drop-off. It slowed down considerably, and it’s just starting to pick up again now.”
Belanger says she is positive the decline was due to listeria-related paranoia.
She says pasta sales in the store increased, while substantially fewer customers were buying DiRienzo’s signature sandwiches.
Mary-Anne DiRienzo, co-owner, says sales were on pace during the roughly two-week period following the initial outbreak reports. “The kitchen was still busy, people were just ordering other things.” DiRienzo says overall business was not affected, but would rather not disclose sales figures.
Dunn’s Famous Deli, a popular deli on Elgin Street, ran into name confusion with a brand of smoked meat that was recently pulled from shelves.
The CFIA recently announced a recall of Dunn’s Famous Smoked Meat, a brand sold at Costco stores.
The similarly named eatery found itself having to defend its namesake brand of smoked meat.
Stanley Devine, co-manager of Dunn’s, says his restaurant’s smoked meat is prepared on-site and is an entirely different product from the cold packaged meats that the recall targets.
The food safety scare has “nothing to do with us,” he asserts.
He attributes continuing business in spite of the situation to the deli receiving a clean bill of health from city of Ottawa health inspectors.
Frank Nicastro, owner of Casa Nicastro Deli on Preston Street, says sales have remained steady throughout the crisis.
He says his store has likely gained a few customers because of its reputation for offering only specialty Italian cuts of meat, rather than Canadian-produced items.
“People have been asking if we use Maple Leaf products,” he says.
Abbass Ataee, manager of Druxy’s Famous Deli Sandwiches on Metcalfe Street, says in late August he posted a sign inside his restaurant specifying that Druxy’s uses Butterball meat, and not Maple Leaf, to prepare its sandwiches, “so customers know.”