No mystery meat at Beretta Farms

Now Canadians from coast to coast can enjoy their hot dogs without worrying about “mystery meat.”

Beretta Farms is taking its line of certified organic beef, turkey and chicken hot dogs national. The products, which first launched in 2012 and were previously only available in Ontario, are free of antibiotics and contain no nitrates, other than those naturally occurring in cultured celery juice.

The line was developed based on customer feedback.

“We used to make a regular hot dog that had nitrates and we had a lot of pushback from our customers,” says Cynthia Beretta, who co-founded Beretta Farms with her husband Mike in 1993. (She is also director of marketing of One Earth Farms, which acquired Beretta Farms in 2013, while Mike is CEO.)

“They were asking for a certified organic line, in which case it couldn’t have chemically processed nitrates. So that was one of the big motivators, to go back and really look at our ingredient list and come up with a clean product that consumers can feel good about serving their families and friends.”

With the organic line, Beretta Farms aims provides consumers with an ingredient list that is both short and understandable.

“It’s just meat and spices, that’s all it is,” says Beretta.

The organic hot dogs are currently sold at Whole Foods, Real Canadian Superstore and Fortino’s. Each package contains six wieners in 375 g packs ($10.99).

Beretta Farms sells a wide range of premium meat products from Canadian-reared animals raised without the use of antibiotics and hormones.