The most the grocery stores mark down meat around here is 2 or 3 dollars which on a small item is a good discount, but on $20 pack of chicken, not so much.

They don't do the whole 50% off thing, like Super Store does, but none of those around here.


Meat along with produce are hard to get good sales on, rarely on sale, and the stores here don't make it a norm to mark down foods to clear them out, they let them sit, and if they don't sell, I am not sure what is done with them.

good question! Most premade burgers and bangers are made with off-cuts of meat + other parts of the animal (that normally wont sell on its own) to bulk it up, hence the cheaper price.

For us we rarely buy beef, mostly because my OH dont like it so we tend to have chicken, pork, and fish. We wont necessary have a piece of meat each, i.e. 1x chicken breast would normally do us for a meal as we bulk the dinner up with loads of veg and some carbs.

Before i was a trucker i worked in a traditional butchers shop in Howden, east Yorks, Beefburgers and sausages are as stated made with off cuts and or trimmings, especially sausages. The difference in prices for beefburgers may be because they deliberately used a good cut of beef for a better burger.
The craziest one i ever did was a family bought two whole rumps, they where hung in the shop fridge for a week, then one was sliced for steak and the other one i cut up for beef burger meat, i had to strip down the big mincer/mixer as i had already used it for something else, clean it then make the beef burgers and again strip it down to retrieve all that rump meat lol
Bet those where gorgeous burgers lol
Sausages are made of trimmings, better cuts that are getting too old to sell wind up in them and they are bulked up with something called husk which doubles in size when water is added, also bought in pure pork back fat is also added, minced at least once, add the seasoning and the husk, mix it all up and with a separate machine and animal intestines you make the sausage.
Different areas of the UK or even the world will have different takes on how to make sausages but basically its for using all the trimmings/waste.
I wasn't a butcher, the correct job title was Butcher Cutter, 90% of my time i was in the back of the store, you only saw me on saturdays when the line got long and i would help serve customers.

Open the gate before you drive past the field....

Thanks for that

we went to the butcher this morning

A 1 lb piece of baron of beef cost $10.69. It will do the two of us at least 2 meals, with some left over for sandwiches

That means each dinner costs about $5 for 2 people

We also bought a leg of lamb, weight 3 lb 4 oz, for $28.14. The butcher cut it into 2 pieces, one was 1 lb 14 oz (the shank end) and the other 1 lb 6 oz. Both are now in the freezer .......... but each piece will similarly do the 2 of us at least 2 meals, plus sandwiches.

So the lamb cost more than the beef.

Re ground beef / burger meat

I can remember my mother sending me to the butcher to buy ground beef ........... I had to get a "nice looking piece of steak' and then ask the butcher to grind that in the shop so I could watch him doing it.

Good training

Lamb is almost always expensive, its not a popular meat in North America, there is also very minimal lamb farming in North America which results in most being imported from far off lands, and combined leads to high prices, not enough mass volume sales wise to bring down the price, its a premium meat.


All this talk of butchers, didn't think they still existed anywhere, we don't have one, grocery stores don't even cut meat any more, it all comes pre-packed, well not quite sea food can still be cut to specifications at Nesters, but not other meats.

I found one in Edmonton and emailed him, here are his prices for lamb:

Lamb chops $43 kg
Neck of lamb $59 kg
Leg of lamb $28 kg
Shoulder $24 kg
Shanks $26 kg
Minced $22 kg
Sausage $29 kg

we don't like BC lamb, we always buy NZ lamb


Vancouver has several butchers' shops ....... we've been going to this one for about 25 or 30 years, since our last one was burnt out of his shop on Granville Street by anti-meat eaters . .......... it might have been PETA or ALF.

Even the Safeways here have real butchers in the back and serving, as well as butchers' assistants.

I was reading last year that the number of people wanting to be butchers' apprentices has increased in the last 4 or 5 years from almost zero to a number sufficient for several colleges to offer apprenticeship programmes.

Wow!

That's expensive!!


The leg we bought this morning was cheaper .......... for NZ lamb

It was $28.14 for total weight of 3 lbs 4 oz, which is more than 1 kg (ca 2.2 lbs??)

Our butcher sticks rigidly to lbs and oz as much as he can ........... English trained, immigrant, supports Liverpool, and really enjoys his work

It's always the quiet ones.

Cool!
Thanks for the info

Are you in Edmonton ?