Is it fresh?

I've been around the Grocery business since I was a baby.  When I was a kid, I'd help my dad close up the produce department, which led to a summer job shagging buggies, which led to a full time job and now here I am, forty-one years old with twenty-six years in the business and completely disenchanted by the industry, the "professional" environment and most of all, the negligence.

I've worked for a variety of meat shops; Restaurant supply, big box chains, small butcher shops, retail grocery stores and mom and pop shops.  Basically, I've been around the block.  I've heard, seen, smelled, and participated in about every meat department malfeasance on the books.  I started in the industry when it was still OK to smoke in the shop, which is going back a few years.  I remember a time when my boss would be smoking a cigarette, cutting a lamb and then resting the half burning stick on the cutting block all while assisting a customer.  We've come a long way since then you'd like to think, but you would be wrong. There are still meat practices and procedures that were used fifty to sixty years ago that are still commonplace today and most of them shouldn’t be.  Here are the most accepted meat department malpractices prevalent today.

Cross contamination and grinding different species in the same grinder without cleaning.

There are an assortment of meat minces; beef, lamb, veal, pork, buffalo, organic beef, chicken, turkey, organic chicken, and free from pork, just to name a few, and, they are all ground in the same meat grinder.  The best practice is to have two or three different grinders for different species, but costs for these machines are in the tens of thousands of dollars, so most departments have just one.  You would think that the next most logical method would be to clean out the grinders in between species with a wash/rinse/sanitize method, but most of the time, that doesn't happen.  Of all the meat departments I have worked in, with the exception of one, none of them have done this.  It's actually disparaged.  they say it takes too much time so you get a wet rag at best, wiping the inside of the grinder, smearing around all the bacteria.  Or worst of all, which is the most common practice, they just dump them in and grind them through, slap it onto a tray and you are none the wiser. I'm sure you don't want bits of beef in with your chicken or some pork in with your organic beef? Cross contamination is pretty disgusting if you don't eat certain foods because of religious or health reasons or even severe allergies.

Taking old product and re purposing it.  

This is hugely common in all the departments I worked in, with the exception of two.  Maybe you're feeling like meatloaf for dinner tonight and the butcher down the street makes a delicious one that you've had on more than one occasion.  The meatloaf is one of the easiest ways to merchandise old ground beef and pork.  Most shops leave their burger out for two days on average for regular sales and after that, they pull them and reuse them in other things like meatloaves, burger patties, meatballs, and even "fresh" sausages.  The product you think you are getting fresh for dinner tonight has actually been sitting out on the shelves for about three or four days before you decided to purchase it and maybe you've decided to leave it in the fridge for an extra two so how old is it when you put it to your mouth?

Re-wrapping product and selling it as fresh.  

Another standard process where the meat cutter will cull the case for old or unsellable product and re tray it and put it back in the case for resale.  It's done every day, but most departments do not backdate their stock, and once again, it's put back out as fresh where it may have been out in the case for two or three days previous. Some shoppers don't even look at the product, they just look at the date and if they think it's fresh, they might sit on it in the fridge for an extra few days after buying it, so once again, how fresh is it when you actually decide to cook it?

Marinating old product and selling it as fresh.  

This is another routine method of merchandising product and even up selling it as a high end meal option but most departments use this as a method of masking old product with chicken being the biggest culprit.  Chicken can only sit out in a meat case for two or three days depending on the cold chain, and most of the time, chicken that doesn't sell is marinated, then put back out as a fresh product at a higher price, so again, when the consumer purchases "fresh" product, they are most likely buying product that is about to turn.  Ever had a marinated chicken leg and felt a bit... off?  Old chicken masked as fresh product will make you a little ill, and sometimes you won’t even think of it.  I worked in a restaurant supply business that brought in a huge order of boneless skinless chicken breasts and when the order arrived, they brought out a kiddie pool, filled it with water and added a bucket of bleach.  They then proceeded to dump all the chicken breasts in this "bleach bath" to clean them up a bit before distributing them to high end restaurants in the area.  

Hiding or removing best before dates on old product and reselling it.  

Be very wary of any meat department that has nail polish remover in or around the desk or wrapping machine.  This is used to wipe off the printed best before dates so a new tag or sticker date can be added to extend shelf life.  Another trick is just not dating them at all.  You have no idea when it was packed on or if and when the best before date has passed.  The product still looks good the packaging is intact but is it fresh?

In store specials, manager specials and department specials.  

These are the specials that didn't make it in the flyer, bonus specials if you will.  Not always a bonus though.  Most of the time when you see these specials it’s because the manager has over ordered their inventory, and they need to reduce it for a quick sale without having to sticker it off.  It's pretty normal to have these types of specials but if you see a shop or department that has half of its stock on special that might mean that the manager is unable or too incompetent to follow proper ordering techniques and the inventory is close to turning.  Product that has been sitting in the back, even though it is still sealed and properly stored, still gets old, so by the time those specials make it to your plate, is it fresh?

Huge sums of food waste.  

Meat shops and departments can be quick to throw everything away.  Most of the product is unsellable, and has to be disposed but there is a high percentage of food that can and should be donated to the local soup kitchen.  One department I worked in for two years had an average of $400 dollars a day in food waste, and especially after holiday periods, those numbers skyrocketed to $1000 a day.  Let’s do the math, an average of $400 times 365 = $146,000 a year on the low end. Even if we were able to salvage ten per cent of that product, it’s still a significant dollar amount of meat product that is served much better in a soup than in our landfills. 

So the next time you wander into a meat department, a butcher shop or a grocery store, ask yourself or better yet, ask your butcher "Is this fresh?"

By Dennon S. Stein