MEAT! GLORIOUS MEAT .... or the Advantages of Wholesale Buying.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I just have to share this! I was talking to some friends about buying a whole cow from a farmer, having it slaughtered and cut up by a butcher, then the meat hung to cure (remove any odors), packaged and given to me. In the long run, with the cost of slaughter and butchering, I figured I could get some good, fresh meat to fill my freezer at around 80 cents a pound. Meat that would normally sell for $2.98 in a grocery store freezer!

Not knowing much about cows, except for knowing what they are, look like and a little about handling them, I was taken to a cattle farmer who dealt often with commercial slaughter houses. I was told that his asking price for meat on the hoof was 30 CENTS a POUND!!! … walking.

Butchered out by a local butcher, including trading him parts like hide, entrails, head, long bones, hooves and tail, including hanging the meat for 24 hours in his cool room after basic sectioning, then wrapping it for me to pick up, brought the cost to 60 cents a pound! (Including wastage, and there is like hardly any of that.)

I did the final sectioning up at home and have a freezer full of prime, grade A beef, bones for rich soup, scraps for hamburger and chunks for stew meat.

Total cost: $480.

Normal retail price for what I got, sold in the cooler of someplace like Walmart: $1000 to $15000.

I had always thought that beef was sold to market at something like 60 cents a pound and then additional costs added on another 30 or 40 cents, then the retailer tagged on at least a 90 to 100% markup, more in the case of certain prime cuts, like 3 to 400%. ($4.00 a pound for porterhouse and $6 for top sirloin)?

Retailers buy beef in bulk at less than what I paid for it because meat beef is pretty cheap to raise, some of the cost being deducted by the sale of milk and veal. Feed is cheap and in some areas, mainly grass, hay and corn.

So, pretty much what I’m saying is that ever since the beef crisis in the middle 70’s, that ran price up enormously, the retailers discovered that people will pay any price for beef, so when the prices dropped on the hoof, the counter prices dropped only minimally.

I have better, fresher beef than you buy in the grocery store, probably more safely prepared than in the huge factories, handled less than those prepackaged chunks you buy in Walmart for much less money.

We’re being skrued by retailers and inflation be damned because inflation is uneven in what it includes. (Most company cutbacks I’ve observed are not because the business is making no profit or loosing money, but that they want to make more profit in less time.)

I don’t know about you, but when my freezer runs empty, I’ll be calling up my butcher and visiting a beef farmer again.

Have you seen the wholesale price on pork on the hoof lately? The butcher will bargain for the hide, hooves, head, entrails, tail and as much fat as he can trim off. He’ll sell all of that to his customers at a fine price.

All of the meat retailers may kiss my *&%!! Now, pardon me, I have some prime one and one half inch thick steaks on the grill that need tending to.

:slight_smile:

2

cheer

I’m all for a happy ending. :slight_smile:

3

At 30 cents a pound you are only going to get meat that is fit to make hamburger out of. The animal in question at that price is most likely a cow that has outlived her usefull days as a breeder or a milk producer. For good quality meat that you could make steaks and roasts out of as well as quality hamburger you are looking at paying at least 70 cents a pound. When the animal is butchered a good rule of thumb is that you end up with 60% of the live weight as a usuable carcass. Then a percentage of that is bones, cartlidge and other byproducts that are removed when the carcass is cut into steaks and etc. Final usable meat is roughy 50% of your starting weight. Then you have to add in the price of the butchering, processing and storing the meat. I am not saying it isnt a good deal but its not as rosy as th OP makes it seem.

4

I would not say that the delicious steaks I and my friends consumed tonight were fit for dog food and would not hesitate to say that they were better than Walmarts finest. They were flavorful, something not all that often found in discount meat dealers, held no dye and did not have that ‘odd and slightly strange’ taste some meats out of freezer cases do.

Tender also.

I think on the hoof prices might vary from state to state and I was not seeking a premium cow that had been raised on a special diet. :slight_smile:

5

Its a simple case of economics and facts. To get “good” steaks you have to have cattle that have been grain fed for at least 90 days, and that takes money. Saying they are better than walmarts finest is really not setting the bar very high.

In general the price of cattle is based on the price traded at the Chicago Mercentile Exchange, today fat cattle went for around 71 cents a pound. Almost all of the beef in the USA today is processed by 3 or 4 packers so the price is almost uniform across the country, with the exception of a few speciality producers.

Being in the cattle business at the growing stage I do have a fair idea of how it works. If you are getting a cow at 30 cents a pound on the hoof you are getting an animal that for one reason or another the owner is trying to get rid of. If any producer had to settle for 30 cents a pound for an animal intended for the table he would soon go broke.

All I am saying is this beef would not be considered top grade beef as far as the goverments grading system goes. In your case you might of got some excellent meat but in general meat at that price will not be as good as beef grown specificlly for the table.

6

Also, a lot of what you’re paying for at the Kroger meat counter is convenience. Look at all the labor you had to do, cutting it up, wrapping it, etc. When you buy meat at Kroger, you’re paying Kroger to do all that for you.

7

All I am saying is this beef would not be considered top grade beef as far as the goverments grading system goes. In your case you might of got some excellent meat but in general meat at that price will not be as good as beef grown specificlly for the table. **
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See my post on the grading system of beef. You are exactly correct in your statement. I do not want to eat an old Holstein milk cow that has been grazing in a pasture for 3 years…talk about some nappy stringy meat. By the way…Prime Certified Angus is going for $19.00 a pound currently. I too am in the biz. :slight_smile: