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Scrap prices

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    Posted: 29 July 2015 at 12:55
It is upsetting to me how the yuppie bunch can ruin the prices of some foods.
I am thinking of meats,mostly.
I am old enough that I can remember brisket being a very cheap thing that was what people used for the cheapest cookout and flank and plate being often thrown in free just so the butcher could get rid of it.
I saw brisket point today, on sale ONLY, $3.99 a lb.
Marinated fajita, only $5.99 a lb.
72/28% floor sweepings ground supposedly meat only $3.49 lb.
This sort of trash is why I keep my LEM grinder hot with the occasional real meats on sale.
I really wish I was young enough to go back to raising a calf or even buying a hanging 1/2 calf, but at 75 and going down fast, those days are behind me.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Effigy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 July 2015 at 15:08
It is happening here too. At the moment beef cheek is fashionable, some of the best restaurants serve it for formidable prices.
And sadly tails are too pricey for me now and we only get one a year. I wish I could breed a two tailed calf.......
..... or maybe we should not go there.Geek
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote drinks Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 July 2015 at 17:59
Tails are a tale of woe here, too.
Ten years ago, ox tail was .29c a lb, I saw it in the current sale flyer, for only $3.99 lb.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote gonefishin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 July 2015 at 18:40
     They've ruined many a good pieces of meat!  Hopefully frog legs and catfish don't catch on too much...of course I'm usually getting my own.  But that's how we lose hunting spots as well.  Used to be a person could get a spot to deer hunt or (forbid) duck hunt.  Now, in these parts it's a sport for someone with money...all the spots are tied up.

   Look what they did to the prices of trucks too!  I'm not that old, but I can remember when a pickup truck with a v8 was cheaper than the average price for a car!  Of course, it only came with one side view mirror and a single bumper Confused
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Percebes Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 July 2015 at 19:34
In a couple of words
Contribution margin

In the good ole days the premium cuts paid the freight.
The remaining cuts were discounted just so they did not have to sit on them.

But now a carcass commands such a high price that every cut needs to pull it's own weight to extract the maximum mileage from that animal.

The internet has also made available to every cook the knowledge and skills to deal with cuts that a home cook might not have known about. This creates new demand for obscure cuts that used to be in the domain of the masterful few.

Click Click- 200 recipes for tongue
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Effigy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 July 2015 at 20:37
Don't get too depressed about it, despite the awesome power of the internet there is still a great swathe of society who don't know how to cook, or even where meat comes from. I am all for recipe sharing, look at this forum!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote gonefishin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 July 2015 at 20:54
Originally posted by Percebes Percebes wrote:

In a couple of words
Contribution margin

In the good ole days the premium cuts paid the freight.
The remaining cuts were discounted just so they did not have to sit on them.

But now a carcass commands such a high price that every cut needs to pull it's own weight to extract the maximum mileage from that animal.

The internet has also made available to every cook the knowledge and skills to deal with cuts that a home cook might not have known about. This creates new demand for obscure cuts that used to be in the domain of the masterful few.

Click Click- 200 recipes for tongue


   good points
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote drinks Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 July 2015 at 21:05
Tongue, don't get me started on that, 15 years ago, .10 a pound, last time I saw some, $7.95 lb, I have been told , thanks to Japan discovering it and trying to buy all of it up.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote HistoricFoodie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 July 2015 at 08:45
I have to take slight exception to your analysis, Percebus. Not the thought, but the conclusion.

More than the internet, per se, what has changed the perception of meat are all the celebrity chefs who "discover" a cheap cut (just an expression from my youth), and tout it as a gourmet treat.

The classic case is short ribs of beef. Other than in New York, where short ribs have always been a speciality, short ribs were an inexpensive way of feeding a family.

The key to any of those inexpensive cuts was, and is, braising. And that's another part of the equation. Suddenly, braising is an advanced technique. My sainted mother should only know she was ahead of the curve on that one.

There's also a round-robin effect. In the South, for instance, you'll rarely find a pitmaster who knows the first thing about smoking beef ribs. That's because the rib meat was traditionally ground for hamburger meat.

So, the question is, now that beef ribs are top end gourmet food, how has that affected the price of chopped beef?
But we hae meat and we can eat
And sae the Lord be thanket
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote drinks Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 July 2015 at 08:52
See my comment on 72/28 ground floor sweepings.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pitrow Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 July 2015 at 13:06
Originally posted by drinks drinks wrote:


I saw brisket point today, on sale ONLY, $3.99 a lb.
 


Shoot, I'd jump on that. I've never even seen a point in any store around here, and finding a whole packer is near impossible too. All we have here are flats at $7+/lb when they go on sale.

needless to say we don't have brisket much in my house.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Percebes Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 July 2015 at 17:22
Originally posted by HistoricFoodie HistoricFoodie wrote:

I have to take slight exception to your analysis, Percebus. Not the thought, but the conclusion.

More than the internet, per se, what has changed the perception of meat are all the celebrity chefs who "discover" a cheap cut (just an expression from my youth), and tout it as a gourmet treat.

The classic case is short ribs of beef. Other than in New York, where short ribs have always been a speciality, short ribs were an inexpensive way of feeding a family.

The key to any of those inexpensive cuts was, and is, braising. And that's another part of the equation. Suddenly, braising is an advanced technique. My sainted mother should only know she was ahead of the curve on that one.

There's also a round-robin effect. In the South, for instance, you'll rarely find a pitmaster who knows the first thing about smoking beef ribs. That's because the rib meat was traditionally ground for hamburger meat.

So, the question is, now that beef ribs are top end gourmet food, how has that affected the price of chopped beef?
So, the question is, now that beef ribs are top end gourmet food, how has that affected the price of chopped beef?

I do a lot of consulting work for Alberta Wagyu producers in this exact realm.
They struggle to move the cheaper cuts and employ me to help develop markets for these cuts.

If brisket is too expensive at $7 lb-which it is for me.
How do you sell Brisket when it is $40 lb?

Celebrity chefs are a non-sequitur in my world.
With the attention span of a gnat-John Q Public can not retain the information for more than a few minutes and off to the net they go for a virtual hand holding.
In Canada Beef Ribs are clearly not as popular as they are down South.
I would venture to say that deriving maximum Contribution Margin on each and every cut is a greater factor here.
To perhaps more clearly illustrate my point, because I can see that I made it muddy.
If a Prime Rib Steak costs a restaurant $35 lb which it easily does for Prime here.
At a standard mark-up of 70% based on a 30% food cost that steak would have to sell for over $115 lb
Good Luck with that.
No one would order but you are a steak house and have to have it on the menu. so you let it sell for $80lb

Sooo you take the cheapest cut you can find and let it drive to recoup your loss
In a butcher shop different margin expectations-but the same concept.

When the $20lb cut sits in your display for 3 days it is rapidly losing value, so you break it down, marinate, tumble and blow dry and sell in 1/4lb portions Value added for $10.
Now you are extracting more value from a rapidly deteriorating cut.
Almost sounds like a Govt operation :)
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