ESCONDIDO: Talone's Custom Slaughter finds a home in Escondido

Talone’s Custom Slaughter in Escondido has stood the test oftime.

Though it no longer slaughters hundreds of cattle on aproduction line as in decades past, it does still provide “custom”slaughters.

Standing since the Great Depression, Talone’s is the last suchslaughterhouse in San Diego County. It will either sell you ananimal that they’ll slaughter, or if you’ve been fattening one upfor slaughter on your farm, you can bring it there and they’ll killand carve it up for you.

Talone’s Custom Slaughter is one of three businesses that lie inthe shadow of the I-15/Highway 78 interchange along North HaleAvenue. The slaughter operation is in the rear of the complex, andTalone’s Meat Market ---- a convenience-style store that sellsvarious cuts of meats and other groceries ---- is in the front.Talone’s Meat Market has a different owner from the slaughterhouse.And just to make the ownership structure more confusing, aseparately owned wholesale produce and fruit company, EduardoProduce, is situated in the middle.

While the three businesses have different owners, they all leasetheir facilities from yet a fourth person based in the Los Angelesarea who owns the land and buildings.

“That’s our only custom facility in San Diego County,” said JayVan Rein, a spokesman with California’s Department of Food andAgriculture.

The slaughterhouse, which is inspected several times a month bythe state agriculture agency for cleanliness and propercertification of its butchers and other animal handlers, is ownedby Escondido businessman Eric de Jong and his brother, Johnnie deJong, a hog farmer from Ontario who hauls pigs to this and otherslaughterhouses scattered throughout Southern California.

De Jong has deep roots in the local agriculture scene. Hisfather’s side of the family immigrated from the Netherlands in1949, settling in Escondido and North San Diego County. Besidesowning the Escondido businesses of Diamond Environmental Servicesand Palomar Mountain Spring Water, de Jong has family connectionsto the landmark Hollandia Dairy in San Marcos.

In many ways, the history of Talone’s highlights the changinglandscape of slaughtering in the United States, and how theindustry has moved largely to corporate production lines in CentralCalifornia, or to beef packer and pork processor IBP Inc. in theMidwest ---- the nation’s biggest.

The de Jongs bought Talone’s Custom Slaughter a decade ago,after the struggling business had limped along for several yearsunder various owners.

From the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, Talone’s changed handsa few times. Verit Industries bought it in 1969. Fullerton-basedNorth County Packing Co. once owned a chunk. Fruit and vegetablewholesaler Eduardo Produce moved into a section of the North HaleAvenue building, where it remains there today.

In 1983, Norwalk shopping center maven Danny Sullivan eventuallybought the entire piece of land and building at 559 N. Hale Ave.---- which includes the slaughterhouse, meat market and producecompany ---- because he needed a supply of fresh meat to sell intohis family’s chain of neighborhood grocery stores in the LosAngeles and Orange County region, according toSullivan.

Sullivan briefly closed the commercial slaughterhouse in 1994when he lost a major beef supply contract with the Albertsonssupermarket chain. That’s also when the Talone’s Meat Market ----which sells cuts of meat, chips, soft drinks, milk, bread and otherstaples ---- was split off from the slaughterhouse portion of thecomplex, and sold to someone else, he said.

During this time, the slaughterhouse was briefly leased by anostrich farmer. “The bottom fell out of that,” said Sullivan, whostill retains title to the land and buildings.

Talone’s got its start 80-plus years ago when Italian brothersHenry and Mario Talone opened a packing house and market at theHale Avenue site to provide a one-stop shopping venue for anyonewho wanted to bring a cow ---- or any other farm animal ---- to be slaughtered, packaged and distributed. Such an operation wasfederally inspected then. It’s state-inspected now, which means itcan’t sell meat from its slaughterhouse to local food markets ----like the one at the front of its complex.

Lourdes Sanchez, 39, who sold her homes in Lake Forest andCorona to raise the cash to buy Talone’s Meat Market just as theeconomy turned south four years ago, has never visited the rear ofthe complex to watch firsthand a pig be slaughtered. It’s agruesome process that involves first killing the animal by firing a”captive bolt pistol,” loaded with a slug, into the animal’shead.

It’s then hooked by the jowls and lowered into a vat of hotwater to soften the skin so that hair can more easily be removed.Then a butcher moves the animal into a “dehairing machine” thatviolently shakes the carcass, flinging off clumps of hair. Abutcher then shaves the animal’s skin to a silky finish with a longknife, and a torch is run over its body to kill bacteria.

People who buy their meat fresh like this have an option to takethe animal to a nearby processor to cut and wrap the meat ----especially if they want special cuts. Otherwise, they load thecarcass, wrapped in a blue plastic bag, into their vehicles forhome butchering.

“It’s sad,” said Sanchez, who visited the market andslaughterhouse with her mother when she was young and living inEncinitas.

Sanchez has regrets about buying the grocery market because ofcompetition from larger supermarket rivals, and the limp economy.”It’s been so hard,” she said.

Before the business was carved up, Henry Talone managed theoperation and carried the title of CEO while brother Mario traveledto nearby ranches, and into Imperial and Riverside counties, to buycattle.

The eventual death of the Talone brothers, the ebb and flow ofeconomic turmoil over the years, and other factors led to a greatlydownsized operation. As populations shifted, consumer preferencesalso changed on who shops there.

Eric de Jong revived the slaughterhouse when he bought theoperation in 2001, but downsized it from a commercial operation toa “custom slaughterhouse.”

The slaughterhouse draws a wide range of ethnic customers,including some from Middle Eastern cultures, Muslims, Filipinos,and others who see the custom slaughterhouse as the place to go fortheir fresh meat.

“We’ve got a luau (Hawaiian feast) event. I pick up the pigsevery once in a while,” said Carlsbad resident Mike Aubuchon, anassistant brewer with Pizza Port Brewing Co. in Solana Beach.

Customers order fresh meat for family-sized orders, or to serveat luaus or parties.

De Jong said the Great Recession has cut into his business.There was a time the slaughterhouse had hundreds of animals waitingto be processed. Today, a steady flow of customers order theslaughter of about 75 pigs and other farm animals per week.

“We do not draw a traditional American clientele that goes toAlbertsons or Vons,” said de Jong, who said the business hasadjusted to the tough economy by slaughtering only Thursday throughSaturday. “We make a profit. It’s just not as good. We aren’t goinganywhere.”