Family butcher ‘heartbroken’ after $8000 worth of meat stolen overnight
A Melbourne butcher has been left “heartbroken” after thieves ransacked his store and made off with $8000 worth of meat in an overnight heist.
Rabeeh Charif, owner of Ivanhoe Meats in Melbourne’s north-east, woke with a start at 4am on Monday to a call from Heidelberg Police.
Ivanhoe Meats owner Rabeeh Charif woke on Monday to find $8000 worth of meat had been stolen overnight. Rabeeh Charif
His delivery driver had arrived for an early morning drop-off to find the shop’s back door busted wide open.
Thieves had rummaged through the butcher’s freezer room, taking thousands of dollars worth of frozen meat, before grabbing an empty cash register.
“The shop was broken in from the rear, we’ve got three locks on the rear door,” Charif told nine.com.au.
“They’ve come in, cut off the power, and cut the lock into our big chiller refrigeration, and taken all the meat from out of there.”
Charif said the thieves had swiped the majority of his stock, an estimated $8000 of eye fillet, porterhouse and scotch fillet steaks.
“That’s someone’s grocery meat for a year or two,” he added.
The brazen theft left Charif with almost nothing to sell customers on a usually busy Monday morning.
He ordered in emergency stock from suppliers to keep the doors open.
The butcher’s freezer room and fridges were ransacked. Rabeeh Charif
‘If you needed a steak, come in and ask for one’
Ivanhoe Meats, a family-run business, opened a little over a year ago.
This is the butcher shop’s first brush with crime in Ivanhoe, a suburb generally considered safe.
“It’s opportunistic, it’s disheartening. It’s actually heartbreaking,” Charif said.
“We’ve had a good year here, working seven days a week.”
Retail crime surged to a record-high in Victoria in the 12 months to June 2026, with Crime Statistics Agency Victoria reporting an average of 263 retail offences every day in the state.
Charif is empathetic – he is keenly aware there is a cost of living crisis making it difficult for Victorians to put food on the table.
What he doesn’t understand, however, is why someone needed to clean out his entire freezer room.
“If you needed a steak, just come in and ask us for one. We’d help you out,” he said.
Charif posted a message on social media and was met with a flood of support from customers and locals. Ivanhoe Meats
“Everyone here is part of the community.
“Everyone’s here to help each and support each other.”
Charif does not have any CCTV footage at the rear of his shop or in the freezer room.
He spoke with detectives early on Monday and the shop was swept for forensic evidence.
Victoria Police said it is investigating the incident.
Anyone with information or dashcam/CCTV footage is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.
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