Snappy rejoinder #257:
I was reminded of this when I paid my monthly visit to the butchery (Hirsch’s Meats in Plano) a few days ago.
Some background: Hirsch makes South African boerewors (farm sausage), and they make it really well, to a recipe provided to them by a South African customer as a special order, but which turned out to be a gold mine for them when they made more and put it for sale in the freezer. Unsurprisingly, they have a large clientele of Seffricans, and one of the basket characteristics (told to me by Nancy Hirsch) is that it is the only product in their freezer which is bought in multiples — i.e. more than one pack per customer. I usually buy four at a time, which yields 12 boerewors sausages for my monthly consumption (New Wife doesn’t eat boerewors, never has, so I have them all to myself yum yum).
Now these are not your typical skimpy things like Nathan’s or Oscar Meyer hotdogs. Even after cooking, these are monsters and sometimes I can’t eat a whole one in a bread roll, but have to slice it longitudinally in half to be able to finish it. (The other half goes into the fridge for next day’s brekkie.)
Now this stuff is not cheap. A pack of three boerewors costs about $7.50 – $8.00, which sounds expensive and it is, but it’s a delicacy, made by hand (because of the very specific recipe) and as such very much worth the money. So I typically buy those four packs with a total ring of about $32.
Until the last time I went into the butchery, and discovered that the packs now cost $11 each.
So from now on, I’ll only be buying three packs at a time, yielding nine sausages for the month instead of twelve. Same amount of money, three-quarters of the product.
Which, by the way, is what I told the folks at Hirsch.
Look, I understand the business of retail product pricing; when it comes to foods, I understand it as well as anyone on the world because I did little else but study things like price elasticity and promotion pricing, for well over forty years.
But the plain fact of the matter is that now in my sunset years, I can no longer afford just to pay whatever the price sticker demands. I have a (very) fixed amount of money I can pay for groceries, which means that at some point, I have to cut back — as above — and make do with less. Fortunately, New Wife is an outstanding cook, so making meals from scratch and eating stews, curries and pasta dishes instead of boerewors hot dogs is not that much of a sacrifice, believe me.
But here’s the thing: once a year I host the family Christmas dinner (on Boxing Day and not the 25th), in which I myself prepare a prime rib roast. In the past, that prime rib has always come from Hirsch’s Meats because I’m not prepared to stint on quality for what is, even more than Thanksgiving, our family’s premium gathering of the year.
Well, this year and probably for the entire future, that prime rib roast will be coming not from Hirsch but from Walmart — something which I also told the Hirsch people.
Sic transit emptor.
I do all the food buying and cooking here and I go to the BIG store about once a month. Each time I go I encounter a few more things I’ll most likely never buy again due to the cost.
One of the early ones was large chunks of beef, roasts, etc. I simply can’t justify the cost. I don’t like it, but it is what it is, until it isn’t. The new normal.
The price of beef has sky rocketed over the last 2 years, I can’t imagine what has happened to their prime level sales as that stuff has gone through the roof. This trend shows no sign of stopping at this point as herds are not growing, and replacement breeding stock hasn’t really risen as heifers at slaughter weight have gone into the packing house instead of being held back for breeding. This situation could continue for 2 more years since it would take that long to start increasing breeding herds and get new calves up to weight.
I miss Hirsches. I still go there when I’m up that way.
But TBH, you can get just about anything you need at Sams if the store has a butcher. I’ve had them cut ribeye roasts for me. If it’s not in the case, you can ask them for it. And I’ve found the quality of the meat to be pretty decent.
I buy large cuts, usually once a quarter. Then I portion them out, vacuum seal, and freeze them. I used to get beef tenderloin, choosing one at or around $100 and cutting it into filets and one roast. Those days appear to be long gone. Most I saw on my last trip were approaching $200.
I got some steaks that were imported from Australia at Aldi – not good. They were cheap, but ooof! not good, not good at all. You could smell the bleach. So they looked OK, but clearly weren’t. Won’t be doing that again.
You may want to check out HEB or Central Market. Beef prices what they are, I doubt it’ll be all that great savings.
Most meat prices are too high. We eat more chicken and pork. Sometimes we get beef and once in a while we get lamb. There is an increasing number of halal markets around. I could probably get lamb there but I can’t bring myself to give them money. Take your 7th century culture and get out.
We have found the best consistent quality for the money at Tom Thumb. It’s very much worth signing up for their “Digital Deals”. For beef, watch for their PRIME sirloin to go on sale.
Took me a bit to figure out that based on your shopping, the digital deal system will apply some deals specifically to your account that are not tagged on the shelf for the general public.
Meat prices are only going higher.
I, through my brother the cattle farmer, for the past 40+ years, buy a half dozen or so cattle every year to round out my brother’s modest cattle operation (mostly Black Angus and Charolais). Economies of scale, as it were.
I was home on the farm this past week, and went to two cattle auctions. What a sorry sight. Blind bottle calves going for $700-800. Many of the cattle were in such poor condition they didn’t even get bid on.
Feed up, hay up, vet bills have tripled in the past 3 years. Oh yeah, small scale processors have shut down so the cattle have to be trucked to a holding yard to be processed. There goes the profit.
Buy a freezer and stock up.
Do you have the recipe? Try making your own. Make lots and sell to friends. Find a yarpie farmer who likes boerwors and do a deal x months supply of sausage for your rib roast.
I feel your pain. It’s not just meat. I like LaVazza espresso coffee beans, and they’ve never been cheap but this past week I just could not bring myself to pay $32 for a kilo of them, which last me 24 days or so. There are a number of other options for ten bucks less, so I’m going to try a few.