Rino Lupini, is shown above in front of the meat display that he
proudly supervises at Desjardins’ Food Basics in the Hanmer Valley
Shopping Centre. For Rino, it is a long journey since the day he started
out his career in 1968 as a meat cutter at the old Dominion Store on
Riverside Drive
in
Sudbury
. “I retired in 1999 and then Ken asked me to manage his meat
department. I’ve been here ever since. It’s been my whole life and
it’s something that I love doing.”
Desjardins’ Food Basics is an extremely busy grocery store which
goes through a huge amount of meat products every week, so Lupini is
always busy ordering and stocking the shelves. He is also proud of the
quality of the meat that he brings in for his customers. “All of our
meats are Grade A, and most of it comes from
Ontario
. When you buy meat from here, you know you are getting the best grades
available on the market. You are not going to get anything less.”
Rino has noticed that there seems to be a gradual shift to leaner,
smaller portions among health-conscious consumers today. “Many people
are buying boneless chicken breasts – anything without skin or fat. They
are also buying a lot more ground chicken and turkey which they are using
as a substitute for traditional ground beef.”
However, despite the increase in demand for chicken and turkey,
Rino still points out that beef still flies off the shelves and will
likely always do so as people simply long for the good, old taste of red
meat.
