To not buy mince in Sainsbury's

[Abccde]

1st world problems I know 🤣

But yuck - I wouldn't feed it to a dog.

The new vacuum pac might not affect the taste (I won't be finding out for a long time) but it certainly looks absolutely disgusting.

And it wasn't this colour in store - they were all horrible and brown! 🤢🤮

It's causing me issues because it takes so much prodding to break apart it's like a lump of meat rather than mince taking twice as long to cook I'm no longer buying my mince with them either I'll pick it up elsewhere. Waitrose do less packaging but it's a looser packet so it's still mince like.

The Lidl 5% grass fed is lovely and normal package.

It because it’s vacuum packed rather than packaged in a sulphate atmosphere. @Abccde prefers chemical gases and more plastic waste instead.

I find it bizarre to be so picky when you’re basically eating the ground-up rag-ends of a carcass - it’s not a choice that screams concern for quality!

I bought and cooked some today
It was absolutely fine .

It's a cow's (in this instance) minced up muscles, adipose tissue and god knows what else. I'm not sure there is a way to make that look pretty.

I only buy meat which has the red tractor on.

I felt this too @Abccde

But I bought it and tried it anyway. It was actually really nice and tasted fresher like butchers mince.

I think the packaging keeps it fresher somehow!

But it looks minging

The Reddit thread came to this conclusion too. Some thought that also affected the taste?

Yabu

Brown is indicative that air has reached the meat at some point.

It isn't very appealing I agree.

Genuinely thought they had added raw pet food to their shops. It did all look pretty brown in my store too.

Heard complaints about it being harder to break up and what not now but I’m not going to be buying it. I rarely buy mince anyway.

The one OP describes doesn't sound right at all.

We usually use Quorn mince as lean beef is too expensive

@FurAndFeathers wanting your meat to not look like it's rotting really isn't that unusual

One Christmas my beef joint came vacuum packed. It smelled so gross that the butcher gave me a full refund. It was that weird brown too. Meat needs air in some circumstances.

Brown mince doesn’t mean it’s off, although it does look gross.

That's exactly how it comes from places like musclefood. Unfortunately the obsession with aesthetics over taste is why why waste so much on packaging, throwing away food that doesn't need it and having to have separate 'wonky' vegetables etc which only hurts the farming community.

Doesn't bother me at all - I'd prefer minimal packaging like this to the bigger, thicker plastic containers they usually come in.

Your choice 🤷‍♀️ Mine was absolutely fine from Sainsbury’s. Good colour, texture and flavour.

This. Don't be ridiculous

Maybe doesn't look nice but hats off for decreasing packaging!

I only buy frozen mince. You can get 5% fat. It's fine

Totally agree OP. Our local Sainsbury’s have started this too and now there are always stacks of it reduced. It looks absolutely awful and does have a sludgy brown colour to it. Puts me right off.

I said the same to the delivery driver when he delivered me 14 packs this week. If it hadn't been that it's for the dogs and not myself then I would have sent it back!
Its actually been ok and looks pink once the pack is open.
I get that it saves on packaging but at least the former packaging could be recycled!

Not really! The packaging they have swapped to isn't recyclable! The former was!

Meat is kept artificially red by packaging it in carbon dioxide or something. Like many things people mistake the natural brown colour for being gone-off.

Totally agree, now it's in non recyclable soft plastic when before at least I could recycle the tray, I can't open it without it spilling everywhere so more work to clean the whole kitchen, and it's one lump rather than mince, so no longer serves the same purpose. And the brown colour worries me, also I know vacuum packed food has an initial smell on opening but it's hard to know if the smell is just that or if it's truly off (well within use by date).

One key principle in making packaging more eco friendly is thinking about the whole lifecycle. Yes this packaging might be marginally lighter for transport, but it's less recyclable, and if people use kitchen roll to mop up the mess then that's more landfill, and if customers think the meat is off when it isn't, and bin it, that's unnecessary food waste.