We Ain't Got No Steaks!!!

[Dave Mazz]

Well, tomorrow is Mother's Day, and since taking the family out to our favorite restaurant, which is not an option in our part of Iowa at this time, I asked my wife what she would like me to put on the Weber. Her response was NY Strips. So, I run into our small town's local grocer. He has no steaks at all. None. A few pork chops, about ten pounds of ground beef, and two chickens in the case.

Next stop is fifteen miles down the road to a larger grocer that is known for their excellent meat department. They have no steaks of any kind, a few brats, some ham loaf, some deli meats and cheese, and three butterfly chops.

Next stop is five miles further to a large grocer. They gotta have some steaks. I'm about ready to opt for tube steaks. In the case, no steaks, but they did have pre-made burgers, quite a few chops, some seafood, and stew meat. That was it. So I walked over to the self-serve meat case and found only four NY Strips, each individually wrapped in Styrofoam trays. Good thing I only needed three, because three is the limit you can buy.

If this is going to become standard, I may have to start eating more vegetables.

 

[Brad Olson]

If this is going to become standard, I may have to start eating more vegetables.

Let's not get extreme about this...before making such a drastic decision, maybe you could head up to Walcott and hijack a load of meat?

Perhaps it's due to a combination of the holiday, closed restaurants, and freezer-stocking.

 

[Rich Dahl]

Glad to hear you were able to get your NY strips. Unfortunately I think this meat shortage is going to get worse before it gets better. Barb and I are lucky we have two refrigerators and a large upright freezer and they are all full from meat we got on sale last year.

 

[Lynn Dollar]

Long story in Texas Monthly by Daniel Vaughn on the meat shortage. Its mostly about shortages for restaurants but it impacts we consumers also

https://www.texasmonthly.com/bbq/where-have-all-briskets-gone/

 

[Lynn Dollar]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1259215875183386624

 

[Timothy F. Lewis]

Something interesting just happened to me, I was chatting with my brother in law now in Alabama, I know his freezer up here is totally empty(I emptied it after they moved) so, he told me “Heck buddy, use that one out there!” I had not even thought about that! I’m going to stop at Costco and head out there to store what I can find and stockpile a few things at a time. It’s a nice drive out there about half an hour each way but, I know freezers are happier with something in them. A couple of 2 liter bottles of water is something but, a package of butts, and a loin maybe? Or whatever I can find, I guess.

 

[Brian Thomas]

Ran into a similar situation today. I drove down to our local meat market fully expecting that they would have bone-in pork chops, pork shoulder steaks, csr's, etc in stock.

Nada.

All they had was a few boneless pork loin chops and that was it. Fortunately they did have their breakfast sausage so I bought about a pound of it.

I did see an older couple in the parking lot right as I got there and they did have a couple large bags full of meat that they were loading into their ice chest that they had in the back of their SUV. I didn't see exactly what they bought, but upon seeing the empty trays where the pork cuts mentioned above would have normally been, I have a pretty good idea.

Freaking hoarders! This panic-buying mentality has got to stop. The media is definitely not helping right now, to put it mildly....

 

[Rich Dahl]

Although we're set from purchasing sale items and dog food specials last year. We've only purchased some chicken thighs and a pork belly and a couple of chuck steaks and some nice bone in pork chops from Costco so far during this year.
It's starting to look like stores are now limiting how much meat you can buy. Costco here has a limit of three items and Safeway where Barb works also has a limit of three. But customers are trying to get around that by having wife and hubby go through separate checkouts some are even handing their kids a twenty dollar bill and having them go through a checkout or they say their buying the extra for their neighbor.
In my self imposed house arrest I try to get out and take the dogs for a walk. I was walking around the neighborhood and went by a house with the garage door up and there were three identical large upright freezers that looked to be new lined up in the garage, they appeared to be about 24- 26 Sq. ft.
Talk about overkill.

 

[Jim Lampe]

i am going to consider myself lucky (and grateful) because, there is a local butcher shop i frequent that is pretty well stocked with nearly anything you can imagine.

 

[Bob Correll]

We need to get this to go viral:
There's a shortage on tofu, almond "milk" and kale.

 

[Jeff Boudman]

While I was at Lowe’s shopping for a refrigerator last week the salesman received three calls from people wanting to buy a freezer. People wanted to put deposits down on. the next freezer the store received. The salesman politely told them they should come to the store and order a freezer.

 

[LMichaels]

We need to get this to go viral:
There's a shortage on tofu, almond "milk" and kale.

Yuuuuuuuuuk with a capitol YUK

 

[Jason in CA]

While I was at Lowe’s shopping for a refrigerator last week the salesman received three calls from people wanting to buy a freezer. People wanted to put deposits down on. the next freezer the store received. The salesman politely told them they should come to the store and order a freezer.

A couple months ago when this garbage first started going crazy my 22 cubic foot upright took a crap. I went to a few stores and was lucky to get the last similar size freezer Lowe's has in stock. Because of everything I feel I overpaid since nothing was on sale and I couldn't get other discounts available to me. But I suppose I was lucky to get anything. While I was paying for it a few other people came asking about freezers and the salesman was quick to tell them they had nothing in stock, and that that guy (talking about me) just bought the last one. I got some dirty looks.

This whole situation has gotten out of hand!!

 

[Karen Elliott]

Was looking baby-backs and struck out. Went to 2 supermarkets and a restaurant supply store. The restaurant place had NO fresh pork. The only fresh beef was ribs. Normally it is a large room of pork & beef. Also, a couple of weeks ago, we decided it was time to replace the upright freezer we have. Its not frostfree and is ancient. Talked to a couple of stores. None in stock. During the pandemic, freezers are apparently the toilet paper of major appliances. Orders one but store doesn't expect a shipment until the end of July.

 

[Dustin Dorsey]

Our local grocer is very well stocked except for pork seems light. They did have plenty of ribs and butts but no loins or pork chops. I think the meat will sort out fairly soon ( soon could mean a month or two), but now is probably not the best time to buy a lot. I have a lot of freezer space but I'm trying not to be a hoarder. I've got a couple of briskets in the freezer which is all I'll probably cook over the summer.

 

[Phil S]

How do you tell the difference between a hoarder and someone trying to avoid exposure by buying in quantity to avoid more trips to the store?

 

[Pat G]

We have a good supply at most of the stores around here. I went to Costco Friday to get some filets for Mother's Day. There didn't have any out so I asked the butcher. He was actually wrapping a bunch of filets and brought out a whole rack of them. They had a truckload of ribeyes for sale. That being said I couldn't buy a deep freeze anywhere right now.

 

[LMichaels]

How do you tell the difference between a hoarder and someone trying to avoid exposure by buying in quantity to avoid more trips to the store?

Oh I don't know like maybe they have a shopping cart full of packs of pork chops, or 15 PISMO beef tenderloin, or 10 whole beef loins. Pretty easy to see who is greedy and who is practical. Ex, I recently bought 1 package of pork chops at Sam's (that's enough for 4 meals for my family), 1 package of pork tenderloin (here too enough for at least 5 meals), I bought 1 whole prime strip loin and 1 whole PISMO beef tenderloin. (We eat WAY more beef than any other protein) and the only reason I bought them this way is I could cut myself a couple roasts, I got some scraps for my Bolognese, and it helps me also take care of my dad's needs. So yeah at the time I made the purchases I could have simply filled my cart with say 2 more strip loins, 2 more pismo's, 3 more packs of pork chops and tenderloins, etc. But what's the point? It's over kill for my needs even taking into account supplying dad. THAT would have made me a greedy hoarder and had you been right behind me and not been able to get a single item you'd be cursing my ancestors, and proclaiming that my parents were not married. Get the point?

 

[Lynn Dollar]

How do you tell the difference between a hoarder and someone trying to avoid exposure by buying in quantity to avoid more trips to the store?

Agree.

I think the solution is for the retailer to limit purchases.

But I really don't think the meat shortages are created by hoarders. Reading Daniel Vaughn's story I posted above, there's problems in the supply chain, and it may relate to problems that have always been there , but are being exposed by this virus.

Here in Oklahoma, there's an effort to create many small processors , that will allow producers to sell direct to the consumer, and bypass what Vaughn's story called the " Big Four " .

They say this won't be in place in time to help this current situation, but it could very well be the future .

https://twitter.com/x/status/1258724134609182720

 

[Lynn Dollar]

From Vaughn's story

“We’ve got a bottleneck now at packing plants,” Anderson observes. Eighty percent of the beef in the U.S. is processed by Tyson, Cargill, National Beef, and JBS (the largest beef processor in the world), collectively know as the Big Four, but remember that this supply chain doesn’t commence there. Calves are born on the ranches and stay there until they’re sent to a feedlot for fattening. The feedlots then sell the fattened cattle to meat processors, including the Big Four, so a bottleneck in the packing plants affects them most severely.


Wendel Thuss raises cattle on a ranch near Seguin (and is also a friend of mine from college). His young cattle will be fine on the ranch until fall, when he’ll need to seek out a buyer. He’s not worried about his operation just yet, but he’s sympathetic to the feedlot operators. “The guys that are getting hosed right now are the feed yards,” he says, explaining that they’ve been feeding the cattle a steady diet of grain in anticipation of getting them sold to beef processors that either aren’t buying or aren’t offering much. (Eleven state attorneys general expressed concerns about collusion between the Big Four, writing “we have concerns that beef processors are well positioned to coordinate their behavior and create a bottleneck in the cattle industry—to the detriment of ranchers and consumers alike” in a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr seeking an investigation from the DOJ.) “Fat cattle are verging on free right now,” Thuss says. And as for the feedlot owners, “They’re backed up. Now they have overfat cattle. Now they’re putting feed in cattle that aren’t growing anymore.” Basically, the feedlots are spending lots of money on grain to add little value to a product that’s hardly worth anything.