by Ed Johnson, Citizen Journalist

At first glance when you enter Carnivore, it seems like just another butcher shop.  Located in Trafalgar Square in Brentwood Bay next to the government liquor store, glass counters are brimming full of various cuts of beef, pork, and lamb.  Upon closer inspection, however, you notice there are no packaged meats in styrofoam trays.  A customer explains, “I like all the meat without the packaging and styrofoam you get in the supermarket, and you can get what you want.”

But lets go behind the counter and see what the real story is.  The ‘meatmeister’  Morgan Westover, 35, is hard at work stuffing sausages for the day’s sales.   “We pride ourselves on selling virtually all  local products, and by that I mean, island grown and fresh.  Food security for the island is important to us.  For instance our beef is grass fed from the Cowichan valley.“

Meat aficionados know that the best beef is grown and finished on grass, unlike factory farms where animals are on an exclusive diet of grains.  “We also have three qualities of ground beef from extra lean 10 percent, lean 18 percent, to regular at 30 percent fat, so you know what you are getting,” he adds.

“Our specialty is hand made sausage,”  Morgan boasts. All of the sausages are gluten-free and made in-house with only spices and muscle meat- no offals or byproducts. There are no pre-made binders or spices from chemical companies that are frequently found in commercial preparations.

“This is the first time in my career of ten years that I have been able to do this.  We have unlimited varieties of dinner size sausage, such as beef and onion, hot and mild Italian, “Brentwood Bay Beef”, chorizo, apple cinnamon, bratwurst, sage and onion breakfast, and even chicken, apple and sage – and we will also make them up to your recipe, too,” he explains.

A customer chimes in. “The sausage you make here is first class, I am in here to buy more”  And buy more they do.  After being open only several days with little advertising, owner Ian MacDonald is pleased with the response.  “We have been busier than we thought we would be, and I have had to hire more help.  Coming soon is our full-production kitchen so that we can offer meat pies, sausage rolls, haggis”…the list goes on.

Brentwood Bay carnivores never had it so good.