best place to buy bulk steak

[stronger]

Online? Costco? Local Butcher?

I'm a college student, so I'm not going to be able to afford fillet mignon, but since I prefer and feel best on an all meat or almost all meat diet, I need a steady supply of steak! (among other meats)


any ideas would be greatly appreciated

[Johnnyfondue]

I'd guess local butcher, but it might be different where you are. Both of my local butchers have excellent meat. I can go to the super market and get excellent fresh meat as well though. I've never really heard of anyone ever complain about anything they have got from Costco, either.

just check it out and decide for yourself, imo.

[Rorschach]

Butchers are a little more expensive than supermarkets, but I buy a months worth of meat at a time, and get a 10% discount (most butchers are willing to do a deal like that).
It brings the price down closer to supermarket meat, and it's higher quality.

If price is your only issue, supermarkets are your friend, look out for special offers.

[Marotta]

I need a steady supply of steak! (among other meats)

I've been bugging my mum to let me keep livestock lately. I figured it's a good Idea, because with a cows and chicken you get milk and eggs for a awhile, then they eventually turn into dinner.

[Rorschach]

If you have a big enough freezer, and are feeling adventurous, you can always get a side of beef, or an even larger cut. A friend of mine does that, and it comes out very cheap (though his dad is a butcher, so that helps ;)).

[toddmr]

The quality of the meat at Costco is very high, and their prices run close to 50% less than the normal supermarkets where I live.

That said, I recently bought 1/4 grassfed, no-hormone, no-antibiotic beef and the average was 3.00 per pound. Incredible quality and I won't be going back to store-bought if I can help it. The challenge is storing 160 pounds of beef. Mmmm, tasty, tasty challenge.

[Dastardly]

I've been bugging my mum to let me keep livestock lately. I figured it's a good Idea, because with a cows and chicken you get milk and eggs for a awhile, then they eventually turn into dinner.


Hens are really really not worth the effort for eating.

The chicken you get in shops is very young one which has been made to grow huge amounts of meat with the aid of hormones etc.

Even though a hen is older, you will get around half the meat of store bough chicken and you will also have to cook it for 5x as long.

It is really not worth the effort in killing and plucking it. Keep it as an egg layer.

[mrRed]

Costco is pretty much my favorite place for bulk meat. My wife and I can usually get away with $140.00 for a week's worth of food (breakfast lunch and dinner), including about 6 lbs of pot roast, 4 chickens, a big pack of pork chops, stew beef, bulk veggies, 3 dozen eggs, butter, 3 gallons of milk, and a bunch of other staples (onions, garlic, misc fruits and veggies, etc ...).

[Sgsolberg]

Sam's Club is also quite good on the meat... I like Ball-Tip steaks. They're nothing terribly special, but I can 10 lbs for about $25. That's dinner for a week. That and milk for 1.78 a gallon takes care of most of what I eat in a week.

[toddmr]

As far as getting good value in steak, I'd suggest you try "flat iron" steaks. They're about half the price per pound of strip or ribeye and every bit as tasty. And I usually buy them on the manager's special at Kroger, which brings it to about $5/lb.

[LondonTiger]

I found the local butcher's are actually cheaper than supermarkets where I live, just supermarkets dominate with their size and their draw of customers so they can still sell at high prices.

I'd say go to your local butchers, get a price for half a kilo, and work a deal for 10 kilo's worth.

you can knock off 10-20% off.

I've also bought meat from stores we call cash & carry's (independant supermarkets that sell to the restaurant and catering trade), you can get good prices from them.. naturally. But finding them is a bitch.

[Dastardly]

Meat is getting really expensive.

I just bought 4lb/1.8kg of mutton mince for a whole £10!

Beef or lamb would be a lot more expensive.

Im thinking of trying to eat more offal like hearts. Liver & kidney make me gag but heart is just like muscle. All offal is dirt cheap in butchers, because such little of it is bought in ratio to the main cuts.

[scotty022]

Learning to cook offal is the best way to learn to cook. Anyone can heat up an already-awesome cut of meat, but if you can take what other people throw away and make it awesome, you're a great cook.

Don't be afraid of liver. There's a reason it's served more than any other kind of offal. Like all weird meats, it needs to be cleaned, prepped and cooked correctly, but when it is, it's awesome. Seared, fried, made into pate, braised... it's all good.