'Cheap' pork masquerades as veal in Montreal

Sunday, June 7, 2015

'Got a great deal on that veal cutlet in Montreal? According to Le Journal de Montréal, you may have gotten pork.

Journalists for Le Journal de Montréal visited 50 restaurants selling veal cutlet dinners for less than $20 in the Montreal and Quebec City areas, took samples and sent them to a genetic lab at Laval University for testing. Of the 25 samples from Montreal, only 14 turned out actually to be pork. Le Journal de Montréal also took samples of "veal" from five butcher shops, of which three were actually pork.

The deception is likely because of the large price gap between pork and veal. Dany Bolduc, a chef at H4C in Montreal, told the French-language newspaper that pork costs him $6 per kilo, compared to $30 for veal. The swap is more than a matter of honesty though. Dominique Tremblay, a spokesperson for Quebec's Restaurant Association, told CJAD 800 AM that deliberately selling pork as veal counts as fraud and can be punishable by law.

Of the 25 restaurants in Quebec City Le Journal de Montréal tested, only one replaced the veal with pork. However, many of the other restaurants used highly processed meat mixed with sauce and breading. BP