Sorry that I have to leave this review, but I will not be using Bellingar in the future. I've been buying a pig from my same guy for 20+ years, and he has always taken them to Bellingars but unless he changes his processor I won't get pig from him again. Over the years there have been some problems with the Bellingar Packing. One year the hog was not killed properly which resulted in all of my bacon being blood-spotted. Poor wrapping was often a problem...resulting in leaky double bagged meat. Failure to cut to my very specific instructions was an ongoing theme.
But, the final straw was the owner, Mike Bellingar, screaming at ME on the phone because HIS meat cutter screwed up the most important part of my pig. I make sausage, and I particularly look forward to making capicola from the pork butt. Towards that end my cutting instructions are pretty simple: bone out the shoulder and leave it whole with the butt attached. But, when I picked up my meat I found that not only had my instructions been ignored but both shoulder/butts were cut into chunks making it good for nothing but grinding.
I complained. I spoke with Mike. He acknowledged that the cut order was screwed up, and then he SCREAMED AT ME, saying he would never cut a pig for me again. I honestly thought he was going to stroke out on the phone. When I reported the problem to my pig guy, he talked about how hard it was to run a business these days and he assured me that he trusted Mike to make it right. So I waited, and when I got a call saying my bacon was ready I went back up to Ashley to pick it up.
Did Mike make it right? HE DID NOT! Instead, he pawned two sloppy boned picnics off on me (not my excellent small batch locally grown pork) without the butts I need to make capicola. Then he offered a $75 credit against a processing bill of $280+ after ruining the most important part of my pig.
Forget about Bellingar Packing. There are plenty of better quality processors out there. Don't count on Mike Bellingar to "make it right". He won't. read more