Starting Thursday, Vancouver-based Earls restaurants will be serving Alberta beef once more after a controversial decision landed them right on the grill of public opinion.
In late April, Earls announced that it would be switching to Certified Humane beef produced in Kansas, claiming that there wasn’t enough of the product to meet their needs in Canada.
After massive public backlash to the controversial decision, Earls backpedaled on the idea and said that it would work harder with local producers to get beef, which meets the standards, to all of its restaurants.
For now, Earls says all steaks served at its restaurants are produced in Alberta. Officials say they’re continuing to work to get enough supply of ground beef as well.
As for the controversy itself, the manager of one of the Calgary locations told CTV that there was an immediate impact to the initial announcement.
"It’s important now because our guests have spoken and we’ve listened. Obviously we knew going into it that Alberta beef is important to Albertans. Coming out of the discussions, we realized just how important it is,” said Andrew Partridge, manager of Earls Tin Palace.
Earls representatives say it is tough to say how much of a decline was due to their controversial decision and how much was due to the slowed economy.
The owners of the Earls in Lethbridge, however, did say that they experienced a 30 percent drop in sales in May and hope that their customers will soon return now Alberta beef is back on the menu.
The company has set up a website to keep customers up-to-date on its practices and which locations have Alberta beef in stock.
