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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To b shocked by the price of meat a tthe butchers?

116 replies

LyraSilvertongue · 06/02/2008 16:28

I bought:

Two sirloin steaks

Two (individual) chicken and mushroom pies

Eight thin slices of salami.

It came to more than £19.

And they wonder why people go to supermarkets for their meat. I'd love to buy good quality meat all the time but at that price we'd hardly ever eat it.

OP posts:
catsmother · 07/02/2008 11:51

I agree lamb shanks have gone up in the last few years but I still think of them as cheap because they're usually around £5-6 for 2 which, for example, compared to steak, is much cheaper .... and of course, far better value than lamb chops which are hideously expensive for the actual amount of meat you get. My DP will eat a whole one but I usually share mine with my daughter so that's 3 meals for £6. If you use the meat to make a sort of pilaff type thing, you could make a couple of them stretch to feed 4 or even 5.

MsSparkle · 07/02/2008 12:08

This thread has made me want to buy all my meat from the butchers. I am sick of supermarkets and the way they treat the farmers. I would rather pay more and get quality.

My sister lives above a butchers so think i will go and have a nosey in there.

sagitta · 07/02/2008 12:15

I bought a £16 free range chicken the other day, ands got 12 adult portions/ meals out of it - and it was yummy. That's it for me and the supermarket. And the salami at my butcher is cheaper than sainsburys.

If the meat doesn't taste good, I'd try another butcher...

Original poster
LyraSilvertongue · 07/02/2008 12:19

The salami was the only bit that was good value, £1.30 for six big slices which tasted really good.
The pies were very nice and meaty but £2.50 each is still too much.
DP and I have yet to eat the steaks.

OP posts:
spugs · 07/02/2008 12:35

i agree that meat from the butcher is much more expensive, a beef joint to feed 2 adults and 2 small children is just shy of £9. tastes much better though. so now we get our sunday roasts from the butchers and the rest of our meat and fish from the supermarket. we always buy free range though and try to get line caught fish (sainsburys do it) it still works out cheaper then the same from the butchers or the fish mongers.

MsSparkle · 07/02/2008 12:38

£9 is good for a joint of beef. I paid £10.50 for beef at Asda which fed 2 of us and we had some left for another meal.

Kathyis6incheshigh · 07/02/2008 13:03

Good idea about pilaff Catsmother!
Yes I agree about lamb chops - they are terrible value and quite honestly the meat is seldom as nice as something tender and slowcooked.

BigBadMouse · 07/02/2008 14:29

Do nay of you ever see Mutton in your butchers? It's lovely - I used to get it from my local organic farm when I lived in Wilts. Must remember to ask my butcher for it

Twinklemegan · 07/02/2008 22:23

Can I ask, do people find they have to specifically request the cheap cuts of meat from their butchers? My last two local butchers have been like the supermarket in terms of the range on display. Lots of expensive and popular cuts, but very little of the cheaper meat. Scrag end of neck for example, I don't think I've seen anywhere.

BigBadMouse · 07/02/2008 22:33

twinkle no, not at my butchers. It was like a whole new world going into my butchers for the first time - suddenly animals had new edible bits I had never heard of. After a bit of reading up I'm slightly better informed. I always like a good listen-in to what everyone else is ordering while I'm queing and the most commonly bought bits are the cheaper cuts. Most people seem to get a few bits of those, a and chook.

I think it depends where you live. We are pretty rural and I think traditions have been kept through the generations so that people know what to do with the cheaper cuts. Maybe in more 'trendy' places the butchers stick with what they think will sell and not make the customers run off screaming .

dosydot · 07/02/2008 22:33

I always get cheap cuts from my butcher - Belly pork, neck of lamb an then spend money on a shoulder of lamb or a free range chicken for sunday/monday.
Have any of you had Skirt of beef for steak - delicious and much cheaper

Twinklemegan · 07/02/2008 22:35

You don't get much more rural than me BBM. Perhaps I've just been unlucky (or haven't looked hard enough).

BigBadMouse · 07/02/2008 22:40

Really? how rural are you?? Does your louge smell of cow poo like ours does right now? Coz ours does (muck spreading and strong wind coming down chimney).

Seriously though, thats a bit crappy for a butcher only to have the good cuts isn't it? I wonder why that is then... I just put it down to customer demand. Have you asked why they don't have much of the cheaper stuff?

ivykaty44 · 07/02/2008 22:45

I went to the butchers last week and I brought 4 sausages, 1ILB of shin beef and a 1ILB of bacon bits and the cost was £5.20.

The reason I went to the butchers was I wanted shin beef and when I asked in the supermarket they looked at me a little strange and asked me what shin beef was? This was at the butcher counter in the supermarket - they have no idea really about meat - which is rather worrying.

What I liked about the butcher was I could ask for four sausages and not have to have a whole packet - which is always to many. I could ask for shin beef and they produced it with pulling a funny face and the bacon bits were cheaper than the supermarket.

I made beef casserole in the slow cooker and with carrots, parsnip and pearl barley a carton of passat it made 8 portions - I have put some portions in the freezer for next week. We had sausage and mash and then bacon, leek and pasta bake and I have put the rest of the bacon in the freezer.

I shall go again this week for some pork.

He also had rabbits in the window - I wonder if he will portion those for me so I can make rabbit stew?

Twinklemegan · 07/02/2008 22:46

Well, not immensely so at the moment - in a hamlet on the edge of a village , but soon will be when we move into our new house . Admittedly in a dispersed hamlet though, not in isolation. We're in the Highlands.

I will ask next time. I get quite embarassed though when there are people queuing - I feel I need to just choose quickly, buy and get out of the way.

Twinklemegan · 07/02/2008 22:47

I got shin beef in Tesco's last week. Have you noticed how much cheaper it is to buy stewing steak in large pieces than to buy stuff that's cut up for you? Crazy.

MommaFeelgood · 07/02/2008 22:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

ivykaty44 · 07/02/2008 22:51

It was Sainsbury where I got funny looks - I try not to shop in my local tesco because it smells - really bad smells like a wet mop that hasn't dryed out and then has been used to mop the floor. So its asda or sainsbury.

BigBadMouse · 07/02/2008 23:03

Twinkle arrrr...we are about the same as you then - just in the nice, warm, south west .

I don't like the pre cut up stuff, I'd rather do it at home where I can see a nice clean knife doing the job. My microbiology brain says 'more surface area = more bacterial growth potential' and my (long way back) 'northern' genes say 'pay extra for it to be cut up for me!!!!!! no way'

RBH · 08/02/2008 08:49

Twinklemegan, my butcher has displays of popular cuts but if you ask him for something else he goes to the back room and returns with half an animal that he cuts bits off for you! He is more than happy to do it.

Habbibu · 08/02/2008 08:59

You need to compare chicken weight for weight to get an accurate price difference. Free range chicken breasts at my local farmers market seem really expensive, but they're 3 times the size of supermarket ones, so although they are still more expensive, it's not as drastic a gap as it first appears.

Habbibu · 08/02/2008 09:01

Got pork belly in the butchers for a stew that fed 7 adults and 2 children - cost £3.41! To be fair there were a couple of sausages in it, plus haricot beans and stacks of root veg, but it was still quite the bargain.

MinkVelvet · 08/02/2008 09:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Kathyis6incheshigh · 08/02/2008 09:35

On the issue of cheaper cuts, I heard something interesting a while back on a local news programme where they were interviewing an award-winning butcher somewhere in the Peak District.

Apparently traditionally, part of the skill of being a butcher was in doing something called 'balancing the carcass', which meant that the butcher would order in whole animals and be able to sell all the different bits. Increasingly, butchers don't do that any more - they respond to customer demand by buying, say, a load of chicken breasts from their supplier.

This particular butcher believed very strongly in 'balancing the carcass' and made it a matter of pride never to order in parts of animals and his solution was to produce his own ready-meals which turned the bits that were difficult to sell (the hearts and scrag end etc!) into stews, pies etc.

I think most butchers are going to have the cheaper cuts out the back but not put them on display, so I wouldn't go at all by what I can see on display. Also, if I don't know exactly what I want, I would be happy to start a conversation with the butcher where I go 'OK, I want some really cheap beef for stewing' and s/he tells me what my options are. I always get the feeling that they love selling you the cheaper cuts which perhaps relates to the carcass-balancing thing.

MrsBumblebee · 08/02/2008 09:45

Another tip is pigs' trotters. I don't actually eat them (although I had them once in a restaurant in Brussels and they were pretty good, actually), but if you add one to a stock or stew, it gives the most amazing richness (meaning you can cut down on the meat content a bit). The butcher at my farmer's market sells them for 50p (though I think some would probably give them to you for free...?).