Challenging Walmart: Experiences with Low-Quality Meats

[lisab]

My town of 50,000 has TWO! super Walmarts. The first one (which started as a regular sized one) had a guy shot down in the parking lot by cops for beating his wife. The newer one has a fatal (I think...) stabbing, the FIRST week it was open! Down with Walmart.

Low-priced, low-quality crap makes people NUTS!

 

[turbo]

My wife and I are pretty lucky. We are a few miles from a farm that raises free-range Black Angus - WAY better than the meat in the stores. There are also a couple of small one-man outfits locally that raise free-range turkeys, and there's another old fellow that raises chickens and he's currently getting overloaded with eggs. We buy them from him for $1/dozen. There's nothing like a grilled fried-egg sandwich on rye with some spicy mustard and hot salsa.

 

[Greg Freeman]

Update:

The chicken thighs I recently got for whole foods, while still good according to their expiration date, smelled horrible when I opened the package. I had to toss them out and eat out instead. I also noticed that the bacon that I bought there only a few days ago actually expired in April!

Today I went to Trader Joes and bought up a whole bunch of fresh food for much less than I would've spent at whole foods. I just wish the butcher I found here had been open on Sundays, because I would've been able to get some better meat...

 

[jim mcnamara]

...Walmart in order to prevent their own meat packers from unionizing, has started outsourcing their meat packing.

Assuming this is correct, wouldn't the boat trip to and from India be a deal breaker
Talk about past the expiration date...

 

[jim mcnamara]

.. Not to mention the landwhales.
I guess I don't know a whole lot about ranching/meat production. All I know is that I can recognize a quality steak when I bite into it.

landwhales == Walmart Megafauna

The way to get really good beef, which seems to be your main desire, is to buy dry-aged prime beef.

This is what you find in good restaurants. There are several reasons that it is expensive.

Prime beef is more expensive - it has fat marbling which increases flavor and tenderness.
Dry-aged beef is hung at 35-38F for 28+ days. Then the outer dry layer is scraped off.
The aged meat has lost moisture, and meat mass, This means the yield has gone down, so the price goes up per pound. Plus, the meat store/restaurant has increased carrying costs, so the price goes up even more. If you want really good meat, going any other route is a crapshoot. Really good beef looks very different from grocery store/Walmat wet-aged beef.
It is a lot darker, and has fat marbling.

 

[edward]

Assuming this is correct, wouldn't the boat trip to and from India be a deal breaker
Talk about past the expiration date...

LOL That would be a long trip.

In 2000 walmart closed down their in store meat cutting and packaging and contracted it out to various regional vendors.

 

[Evo]

In 2000 walmart closed down their in store meat cutting and packaging and contracted it out to various regional vendors.

So, that would be considered a good thing.

I have purchased some great meat at Walmart. Their hamburger is top notch. The chicken is excellent. If I wanted a superior steak, I don't know if I would expect to find one at Walmart, but I guess if I bought their best, it would be fine.

I prefer angus beef, and I don't recall seeing angus at Walmart.

I do not care for the quality of most of their produce, however. Once in awhile I will see something nice, but most of the time the produce is badly bruised. Perhaps that is partly the fault of some of the patrons that appear to have no common sense and an apparent lack of a produce manager.

I have noted that just on the groceries I buy for myself that I save over $30 per trip buying the same name brands that I would at a regular grocery store. I only entered a Whole Foods store once and left without purchasing anything. Can you say "overpriced and mediocre"?

 

[JasonRox]

Always buy quality food, no matter the price. Its going into your body.

I hope all wall marts go out of business and small grocery shops return.

I disagree.

From my experience in small (mom/pop) shops, the owners are just dumb and can't run a business. That's the real reason they go under.

I've seen some nice small businesses, but not that many.

 

[JasonRox]

Just walk into a good halal meat market. The meat looks completely different from a grocery store. Its bright red and FRESH. The stuff in the super markets are light red/white-ish.

The halal meat place will take a big slab of meat and cut what you want right infront of you.

Halal meat is no different than regular meat.