Rachael: Bean Party

Beef & Cheese

My hunt for the origins of the beef and cheese from Gaby and Liz's Taco Truck stopped shortly after my conversation with Juan. I found out that both the beef and cheese were bought from Restaurant Depot, the mozzarella is an in-house brand "Primo Italiano" and Juan declined to say anything more about the beef.

Restaurant Depot seems to be a major supplier for restaurant across the city with products across a large range of quality. The depot is not open to the public (according to an employee over the phone.).

After the initial trail died, I substituted the easily accessible Trader Joe's equivalent. The preceding maps show the best food shed I could estimate.

CHEESE

The shredded mozzarella from TJ's is labeled, "distributed through Monrovia, CA". As it seems many of the TJ's products are. Monrovia is in southern California, just north east of LA and is home to the headquarters of TJ's.

To better understand where all parts of the cheese was from, I researched each of the ingredients and mapped the locations of the largest producer of each part. I assumed that the ingredients which are still produced in large quantities within the USA would in fact be from the USA, such as milk or corn products. Interestingly I learned that the Bay Area is one of the major salt manufactures internationally.

BEEF

Without knowing more about the cut or grade of the beef used at the Taco Truck, I went with the "Beef Cube Steak" at TJ's. The label somewhat troublingly stated boldly, "PROUCT OF USA, CANADA & MEXICO". And so without hesitation I assumed the beef had been raised in a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) and turned to Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma to see what he had to say about the components which go into growing beef in these conditions.