Buyer Beware


 

Chris Allingham

Administrator
Staff member
As we all know, meat knowledge is getting dumbed down more and more at the retail level. In many cases, meat comes into stores already wrapped in Styrofoam trays and the "butcher" is relegated to simply loading the trays into the cooler.

There's a little more going on at Costco. They are trimming and packaging a lot of meat in-house, and unfortunately in my opinion, blade-tenderizing most cuts of beef that are sold on Styrofoam trays. I wish they wouldn't do that and let the customer do it at home with a Jaccard meat tenderizer if that's what they want. (By the way, beef sold in Cryovac like whole beef tenderloins, whole briskets, and bags of tri-tip are not blade tenderized.)

But I digress...what I wanted to write about is brisket. It's getting confusing at my local Costco.

IMG_3233_zps9be645b0.jpg


In this photo, there are two types of brisket. The one on the left is labeled "BEEF BRISKET FLAT CUT BONELESS USDA CHOICE #76224" and it's a super-trimmed flat. The one on the right is labeled "BEEF BRISKET WHOLE USDA CHOICE VACUUM PACKAGED #26637". I get to looking at these whole briskets and the biggest one is about 9 pounds. The smallest one is just over 5 pounds.

I motion to the guy loading meat into the cooler and ask if there's a chance they've mislabeled these "whole" briskets, because a 5 pound whole brisket is highly unlikely. Perhaps these are untrimmed brisket flats, with most or all of the point removed? He says yes, they're flats with the point removed. "We just call them 'whole'", he says.

At the Costco Business Center, they sell untrimmed brisket flats as "BEEF BRISKET USDA CHOICE VACUUM PACKAGED #84281" and real whole briskets as "BEEF BRISKET WHOLE USDA CHOICE VACUUM PACKAGED #26637".

Maybe this is just a labeling issue at my Costco. Still, it's a reminder of the old adage "caveat emptor", or "let the buyer beware". It pays to be well-educated about the meat you buy to make sure you get what you're paying for. In this case, for the saavy buyer wanting untrimmed brisket flat, the error goes in favor of the consumer...they're getting untrimmed flat for the price of cheaper whole brisket. For the uneducated consumer trying to buy a whole brisket, he's not getting what he wants and may not even know it.
 
We get the same thing here in the Twin Cities with Tri Tip. Tri Tip Roast, Sirloin Tri Tip Roast, Sirloin Roasts all get bandied about with the strange labeling.
 
We get the same thing here in the Twin Cities with Tri Tip. Tri Tip Roast, Sirloin Tri Tip Roast, Sirloin Roasts all get bandied about with the strange labeling.

The briskets were cut up as in your photo at the Mt Prospect IL Costco this week.

They also sell Tri-Tip at this store, but it is always cut into slices about 2" thick and more than one tri is used
and on a styro tray and wrapped. In both cases I would prefer to buy an unsliced, and untenderized brisket and
the same goes for the tri's. They must lose business this way.
 
Stuff the Costco suggestion box!
I did, when they stopped selling tri tips here, they came back, but seem to be gone again.:(

I hope they keep the "whole" not whole briskets in Cali.:p
Still able to whole whole brisket packers here, for now.
 
One of the meat places I shop labels tenderized meats as "Mechanically tenderized". Not sure who buys that crap.
 
Well in my quest for baby backs (that's another post) when I was in Costco I asked two different butchers, if that's what they're called and they both pointed out the St. Louis cut spares and said they were the same thing. Only thing we buy there is hamburger, rib eye steaks and whole pork loins.
 
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Rich;
I have been doing nothing but "Loin Back" ribs from Costco for a year or so. I have been extremely happy as has my guests. They also offer St. Louis Cuts and they are both labeled correctly as you and I use the terms. The loin backs have a TON of meat on the bones and we LOVE them. I have not seen so called Baby Backs of this quality anywhere else (Marshes, Wal-Mart, Kroger, or Meijers).

I hope they continue with these ribs...

Chris;
I agree completely with your contention that we need to "pay attention" when we are buying meat. That has certainly been my experience.

Keep on smokin',
Dale53:wsm:
 
One of the meat places I shop labels tenderized meats as "Mechanically tenderized". Not sure who buys that crap.

seems to be a sanitation issue too - usually the interior of large cuts of meat are able to be cooked to a lower temperature and still be safe because only the surface was exposed to oxygen / contaminants. Mechanically tenderizing these cuts seems to be a bad idea to me.
 
I came across this article today from the Wash Post on the 13th. This was not at Costco, but a big chain back in MD. They tried changing their Grading labels, but it didn't work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...eling-practices-the-usda-didnt-appreciate-it/

It's obvious that outfit has run out of ways to lower their costs (in this case, raise their profits) by removing "select" from the label. As the article points out, people are naive and the company may be trying to hide the fact they have a lot of select meat available and are raising the price in a deceitful manner.

Shop elsewhere-->but it may be useless as more companies may try the same tactic. Like now, they are introducing 750 ml containers of milk instead of the 1000 ml (ie 1 litre) version for the same price as they had sold the 1 litre size. Counting on people not noticing the different size. Same as cheese, ice cream, sour cream, etc etc etc
 

 

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