Yesterday I went to pick up a couple of things to make for dinner, from a major national chain store. This store, is known for its “USDA prime beef” and they advertise it, all over the place. It’s their entire selling point of the store.
So, as I’m cruising the meat section, being blown away at the prices of things (steaks that would have been 7.99 lb last year are 12.99 a lb. Hamburger that was 5.00 a lb last year is now 9.00 a lb, etc etc). But then I noticed something very interesting. The entire meat section, not a single cut was graded USDA prime. In fact, every cut of beef (that was packaged) was “USDA choice”.
Now for those of you who don’t know, there are different “grades” of meat. Prime being “the best” (and there are different grades of prime) followed up by choice, than select. The lower you go, the “cheaper” the cut of meat is.
So here is the thing, what this means is that the cuts of meat that are now running about 4 or 5 dollars more a lb, are of a lessor quality than the meat you were probably buying last year. This means that in reality, the cost of meat has gone up significantly more than more people realize. That USDA prime sirloin that you bought for 7.99 /lb last year? Yea, that’s not going for 12.99 lb, it’s more like 22.00 a lb. They just aren’t even stocking it (because people couldn’t afford it).
Another interesting note, is that the meat in the “butchers case” had a very interesting sticker on it. It said and I quote “imported. Not USDA graded”. This is the first time I’ve ever actually seen a store sell imported, non usda graded meat in the butchers case, as usually these are your better, more expensive cuts of meat.
I think the situation is worse then we think folks. If any butchers or meat market employees are out there, please chime in.