To not want to buy meat from butchers

[etoiledemer]

I buy some meat from supermarkets and some from butchers but I always feel the latter has a really short shelf life and that I'm being sold the stuff that's about to go off.

For example, I bought a chicken on Sunday which we ate on Sunday and that was fine but I also bought sausages for the kids' tea tonight and they smelled slightly off today when I went to cook them today. Of course, the butcher told me they would have five or six days left in them.

I hate having to smell meat to find out if it's good enough to eat and think use by dates are a much better way of working out how long meat will last.

By the way, my butcher is reputable, award winning and all that guff but still completely untrustworthy IMO.

I probably get 80% of our meat from the local butchers, he offers a discount (reduction in price per kilo) on larger orders.

I prefer to buy from my local butcher. They have their own farm and their produce is very fresh. I don't find it's that much more expensive than the supermarkets. I bring it home and package/date it and put it in the freezer.

I buy mine from Waitrose as I want free range meat (chicken and sausages is basically all the meat I buy). The last time I tried buying meat from a butcher, the meat had no origins or history. I had no idea if it was free range. I asked the butcher and he said "err...yeah...sure... It's free range". Needless to say, I didn't believe him. And anyway, the meat in the butcher is far more expensive than the free range meat in Waitrose.

Surprised by people saying the Butcher is more expensive - ours was cheaper (until it closed - maybe that's why!) but the one I go to in a nearby town which is locally sourced and organic is still cheaper than Co-op supermarket, better quality, and I can buy the exact quantities I want.

Butchers here! they do a selection of meat packs at our local one which is fab, £13 this week got us chicken breasts x3, bacon, sausages x6, mince, 4x steak burgers and 6 free range eggs. All local, all fresh and no nasty watery stuff leaking out as you cook it while the meat shrinks!

The local butcher I use can track the origins of his stock, most of which is locally reared and slaughtered. He also does a good selection of sausages and burgers depending on the season.

Our local butcher runs open farm events, so we can go & see some of the stock (esp. cattle). Also the fields where they grow crops.

Blueteapot I've just added up those items roughly in the co op or tesco and yes, yours is cheaper.

Our local butcher advertisers as his own farm cattle and some are.....but they also have to buy in a lot of meat from elsewhere....I don't think they are obliged to say what meat is from their farm or not?

Then when the local cafes and restaurants sell their meat in their meals, people are led to believe it's all farmed locally when it actually isn't.