It is 36° and I am shivering in a vast, white, button-down butcher’s coat, surrounded on all sides by 3,000 pieces of dry-aging beef. The sign on the glass outside reads “Please be quiet while our meat is aging,” and indeed, there is a sense of the sacred in this space that hums with the whir of fans while each piece of meat, carefully arranged like a jewel on display, undergoes its individual enzymatic transformation.

“Doesn’t this room smell good?” enthuses my beaming host, George Faison, his arms circling expressively like a conductor reaching a crescendo. To be honest, my senses are struggling slightly with the extreme fleshy, bloody, meatiness of it all, but as I acclimatize to the aroma I pick up rising notes of sweet earth, damp hay and mushrooms. Many of these masterpieces are destined for the dining rooms of the most prestigious addresses in New York City, among them Daniel, The Four Seasons, Per Se, Gotham Grill and Colicchio & Sons, as well as New Jersey’s Elements, Huntley Taverne, Maritime Parc, Ninety Acres, The Bernards Inn and others.

We are standing in what is the equivalent of a vault at DeBragga and Spitler in Jersey City. It was only a year ago that this venerablemeat purveyor pulled up its roots to migrate west across the Hudson River after a lifetime spent in the heart of the legendary meatpacking district on Manhattan’s lower West Side. For Faison and Marc Sarrazin, the company’s owners, the move was a logistical and emotional upheaval—they joke that they’re still figuring out where the furniture goes—but they’re thrilled with the extra space and opportunities for growth as well as the neighborhood and the welcome they have received. “Jersey City is uniquely positioned geographically,” George points out, “with access to the Holland Tunnel, the port, the airport and the highways. I can’t think of a better place to run this business.”

DeBragga and Spitler, which is a butchering facility as well as a wholesale and online retail distributor, was founded almost a century ago, but it wasn’t until the mid-1950s that Marc Sarrazin Sr. joined the company and grew it to new heights. His son, Marc Jr., virtually grew up in the meatpacking area and helped out from a young age.

“My father was born in 1926 in the town of Charolles, France, which is famous for the Charolais cows, these beautiful large, white, muscled animals,” Marc tells me, his voice growing eager with the memory. “When I was a kid I spent every summer there. It was idyllic, and Wednesday was market day. My grandmother had a café on the main square so I’d wake up, look outside and see these large pens with hundreds of animals being sold at market.”

Marc’s father left school at 14, following the French tradition of an early apprenticeship, and before long was running a butcher shop in the Paris central market of Les Halles. However, as Marc proudly mentions more than once in reference to his father, “he always wanted to do more.” That opportunity arose with DeBragga in New York City, where the majority of top chefs were French. Sarrazin Sr. found he could use both his language and his butcher’s expertise to earn their business, which was to provide the finest cuts of meat according to their individual specifications.

By all accounts the senior Sarrazin was a legend in the business. “He was a butcher, not a chef, but he was one of them,” says his son. “He knew what it was like to be hungry. They really appreciated his perspective and he did a great job.” After his tragic death in 1995—he was hit by a car after attending a dinner honoring Paul Bocuse—The New York Times described Sarrazin Sr. as “a benevolent godfather to generations of young American chefs.”

Marc’s mother, Renée, a down-to-earth Frenchwoman with busy hands and a warm presence, still works at DeBragga in an administrative capacity, and it is clear when I meet her over lunch that she also a mentor to both her son and George. “My grandparents were cattle raisers so I am very much a woman of the soil,” she says firmly. When I ask about the astonishing changes in themeatpacking district during the 60 years she spent there, including its current reincarnation as a nightclub and style hub, she replies with fervor: “If my husband could walk through the meatpacking now he would think he was in a different city. Who would think that fashion would come to the meat?”

George Faison joined DeBragga in 2006 at a time when Marc was looking for ways to reinvigorate an old, established brand. Faison, meanwhile, was a man on a serious mission. He had spent the previous two decades at D’Artagnan (today located in Newark), the specialty game and fois gras company that he founded with Ariane Daguin. Now he was hungry for the opportunity to focus on naturally raised meat of the type that most people eat, namely beef, chicken and pork.

“I’d known George for a long time and I was by myself,” Marc recalls, “so I thought this might be the right guy and I reached out.

One reason we aren’t eating more clean meat is quite simply because it costs more. This is particularly true of beef, as it takes a lot longer to raise the animal naturally.

DeBragga and Spitler moved its operations from Manhattan’s meatpacking district to Jersey City in 2011. Artwork (this page) from Marc Sarrazin Sr.’s hometown of Charolles, France adorns the dining room in the new facility. Dry aging beef on the hook (opposite) is destined for some of the finest restaurants in NY and NJ.

I think we’re very much like-minded, we’re passionate, and we’ve set the company on a new direction. We really believe in responsibly and naturally raised product. I think we owe that to ourselves and to our children.

”Since Faison joined the company, DeBragga has followed a strict “never ever” rule for all its chicken and pork products, meaning that the animals have never, ever been given antibiotics, growth hormones, steroids or any animal byproducts.

What about the beef, I ask George—is that also ‘clean’ meat? Only some of it, he says, and goes on to explain how determined he is to change that.

“We are pushing like hell to reduce our percentage of commodity beef [meat produced on more of an industrial scale, typically with the use of antibiotics and other unnatural treatments (see sidebar)]. We’re telling people the truth. Five years ago clean beef was less than 5% of our sales, now it’s 35%, and that was during a recession…”

To describe George as passionate is something of an understatement. His commitment not only to spreading the message about clean meat but also to convincing people to buy it over the cheaper and more easily accessible alternatives make him a force to be reckoned with.

The biggest problem with commodity beef is that, after the animals are raised on pasture for about 15 months, they are moved to a feedlot for the next 75 to 90 days and automatically given antibiotics, a common practice to prevent illness in animals raised in confinement. Despite industry assurances that no residue of the antibiotic remains in the meat, there is no doubt that we’ve seen a dramatic increase in antibiotic- resistant bacteria in recent years.Meanwhile, the farmer raising the cattle may have administered a growth stimulant early on which is often repeated at the feedlot, giving the animals a double dose. Add to that other pharmaceutical drugs given to combat digestive problems due to the grain-rich diet or diseases that crop up due to the close quarters.

According to George, not only are 99% of the animals consumed in this country commodity raised (of the 650,000 steers and heifers slaughtered every week in the U.S., Faison estimates that less than 2% are raised without antibiotics and hormones), but 80% of the antibiotics sold in America are given subtherapeutically to the animals we consume.

“I don’t think people realize the risk that’s involved,” exclaims George. “If they really thought about it, they’d be going ‘Well, why do we do this?Well, we have to produce enough food.Well, what if we didn’t? It would cost more. Well, how much more? Well, how much protein do I really need? Oh, half as much as what I’m eating already.’We have people sucked into this cycle and we have to break it.”

One reason we aren’t eating more clean meat is quite simply because it costs more. This is particularly true of beef, as it takes a lot longer to raise the animal naturally: nearly three years for a grassfed steer or heifer to reach a size for slaughter as compared to approximately 18 months for a commodity-raised animal. Another reason is that customers are not being given enough information. As George observes, that’s why people go to a Whole Foods Market or the butcher counter of a quality local grocer: because they trust that they are being given clean meat. Yet commodity producers don’t want the story to be that clear, and you should assume that most supermarket meat is commodity raised unless the packaging states otherwise, in the correct language (see sidebar). Some packaging is deliberately misleading; for example, meat may be labeled “natural,” which means nothing but might be interpreted, incorrectly, as “naturally raised.”

America latched on to an industrial model for meat production long ago, and many of us remain ignorant not only of the bleak origins of that pork chop or chicken drumstick on our plate, but also of the health implications of consuming it. “The problem is the spin out there is so bad, people are being taken to the cleaners,” says Faison. “They think they’re doing the right thing, but they’re buying shit and they’re supporting people who are very unethical. To my mind, if it’s antibiotic free then God bless.”

George dates his formal introduction to the movement against using drugs, chemicals and artificial preservatives in meat to the late 70s, when he was at Columbia Business School. There he met Ariane Daguin, who would later become his partner at D’Artagnan.

“She was friends with these guys who were making pâté out of a hole in the wall. That was Les Trois Petits Cochons [charcuterie] and they were doing authentic home-style production. The key was that it had to be clean and you cooked it slow and it would be better and it was better. It’s always better. They offered me a job so instead of going to Wall Street, I went to work for them.”

While Marc Sarrazin spent his childhood summers communing with Charolais cows in France and luxuriating in his grandmother’s bistro cooking, George was growing up in Austin, Texas, on local Tex-Mex, Frito pie, chili, Gulf Coast seafood and many meals that he foraged for in the woods, either as a Boy Scout or hunting with his father. He fondly remembers camping out and eating quail, frogs and berries that they procured.

“They were big old bullfrogs so you’d cut them off at the hip and it’s all meat from the leg on. Just dust them in a little bit of flour, flop them in the pan and sauté them in some butter.” Always, there was meat. “Just at a Little League barbecue they would dig a 20- foot trench and the men would work all night building the coals and cook tons of briskets, tons of ribs.”

DeBragga sources its meat from as far away as Australia (Wagyu beef ) and New Zealand (venison) and as close to home as Griggstown Farm in Princeton (poultry, ducks and pheasants) and Pittenger Farm in Sussex County (heritage pork). In general, however, raising animals in New Jersey is done on a small scale due to the high price of land. Grass-fed cattle in particular require a great deal of pasture, so DeBragga tends to work with ranchers in the Catskills and the Finger Lakes regions. While many chefs in New Jersey source poultry and often pork through local farmers, apparently the beef options are fewer.

Corey Heyer, chef at the The Bernards Inn, buys venison, lamb, Niman Ranch pork belly and dry-aged sirloin from DeBragga. “There is a farmer five miles up the road raising Black Angus but he wants me to buy the whole cow. What am I going to do with 1,000 pounds of beef? I’d have to freeze most of it, for a start, which is going to affect the quality of the meat.” After weighing the pros and cons, Heyer decided he would rather buy fresh meat through a trusted source even if it’s not local. He has tried serving exclusively grassfed grassfed beef but finds that most of his customers prefer the rich flavor of grain-fed, dry aged steak. (Grass-fed beef is naturally leaner and does not usually have the intramuscular fat to allow for much dry aging.)

“I’m not going to change the industry in my lifetime but the key for me is to get the drugs out of the animals that we eat.”

Scott Anderson, the chef-owner of Elements in Princeton, also feels that, when it comes to local beef, the meat is often not butchered or finished as he would like it. Anderson’s beef of choice is the pasture-raised, grain-finished beef available through the Niman Ranch program, which is then cut and aged by DeBragga according to Scott’s specifications.

“Niman Ranch cares about the small farmer and the animal and I know I’m getting 100% clean meat,” Anderson says.When I comment that many chefs just won’t pay the extra cost for clean beef (for example, DeBragga offers a bone-in strip of Certified Angus Beef wholesale at $5.35 per pound for commodity; they also sell the same grade and type of beef from Niman Ranch at a cost of $8.18 per pound), Scott tells me that his restaurant is driven by quality, not price. His customers care about these issues and want to know what they’re eating and how it was raised. Other New Jersey restaurants that source clean beef from DeBragga include Ninety Acres, The Pluckemin Inn, Stage Left, Serenade, and the Stone House.

“There is no question that naturally raised meat is the future,” declares George, adding that there is just no need to give antibiotics to any animal unless they get sick. “Bill and Nicolette [of Niman Ranch] taught me that this is what’s important: good husbandry— raising the animal properly; fair compensation for the farmer; dispatching the animal fairly and humanely; and being conscious of our carbon footprint. I’m not going to change the industry in my lifetime but the key for me is to get the drugs out of the animals that we eat. If that’s the one thing we stop before I die, I’ll be happy.”

BACKTOTHE START

Moving Away from an Industrialized Meat Model

As meat consumption dramatically increased in the U.S. over the past century, beef and pork became commodities in an industry that favors volume and price over quality and health. Americans now consume an average of 270.7 pounds of meat per person each year,* and an industrialized, mass-production system exists to meet demand. Animals are often raised in overcrowded factory-like settings where extreme measures, such as the excessive use of antibiotics and growth hormones, are commonplace.

The dangers of this system are becoming obvious on many levels. In a special hearing before Congress in July, Representative Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) warned about the public health threat posed by the fact that over 80% of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used by the intensive livestock industry.“Just last year, the U.S. had three major outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant food-borne illness, all from meat product,” she told the audience. “Decades of research have shown that daily dosing of antibiotics to healthy livestock is largely to blame for the rise in resistant bacteria … Antibiotic-resistant bacteria represent one of the gravest known threats to human health.”

With a rise in local farms dedicated to naturally raised meat, the future for nutritious, healthy and flavorful meat from humanelyraised animals seems bright. But America will need to rethink its relationship with the meat on our plate—and what we are willing to pay for it.As Nicolette Hahn Niman wrote in her book Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms (Harper Collins, 2009), “eating meat less frequently and in smaller portions makes it possible to budget the same amount while switching to meat from traditional farms. … Only in recent decades, with meat overly abundant and improbably inexpensive have Americans lost their view of it as something precious.”

And perhaps most importantly of all, consideration needs to be given to the humane treatment of the animals who feed us.“Though I am by no means a vegetarian, I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable in order to feed me,”Wendell Berry wrote in The Pleasures of Eating. “If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade.”—N. Painter

* Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 2010, as reported in “A Nation of Meat Eaters”, NPR, June 26, 2012.

READING BETWEENTHE LINES

Five tips for sourcing clean, naturally raised meat

• Assume that all meat is commodity-raised unless it states otherwise.
• Don’t be fooled by the term “natural,” which simply means nothing has been added at the time of slaughter. Look for the term “naturally raised,” which means no hormones, no antibiotics and no animal by-products were used, ever.
• Be wary of the stand-alone label “hormone free” on chicken and pork products. In fact, hormones are not permitted for use in chicken and swine at all, so there’s nothing special about hormone-free chicken or pork. It’s antibiotics that you want to avoid.
• Look for the label “Certified Humane” or “AnimalWelfare Institute,” either of which guarantee the highest level of welfare for animals at all stages of their lives, including no confinement, antibiotics or hormones.
• If your neighborhood grocery store does not offer clean meat, speak to the management and request that they start carrying it.

—MeganWetheral