Buying ribs by the case question..

[danielh]

The first weekend in May we are having some friends over to the house for a big rib cook. Rather than taking a chance on somebody bringing bad meat over or not get it here in time, etc, I am going to purchase and handle all the meat and then just let them repay me. Dont want to get anybody sick, and it saves everybody else a trip.

So I was thinking of just buying a case of both baby backs and spares.

Now I do have a question. Usually when picking ribs, you always see a few racks that you know you dont want for one reason or another. And you see some that you just gotta have. Is it luck of the draw on whether you get good ones or not when buying by the case? Just trying to figure out if its worth the case price savings vs. being able to pick through cryovac ribs and know exactly what i'm going to get. Purchase will most likely be from Sams Club.

 

[smokeguy]

I've bought meat from Sam's by the case before when they had all of the meat already out on display already. You just need to talk with the meat manager to find out how many are in a case. If you're lucky, they'll have one of the old boxes (or even an unopened new box if you want to pick and choose your ribs- they won't have a problem with that and can just give you the box they use to restock what you take) for that in the back which makes finding the case # they have to have easy. If the boxes are already gone, they have to look in a notebook for the case # and that is spotty at best. It can take awhile. But, it's worth the wait in the savings I've found. And I've found that different Sam's use different case numbers on certain items, or they order slightly different items. And that takes more time sometimes...

 

[danielh]

Thanks for the reply. I was hoping to hear that I might be able to pick what i want and still get the case price. I plan on going and talking with them a week or so before just so I dont get into some last minute surprise, but it wasnt worth a trip there today when we have great tools such as this board to use.

There is another place I'm going to check out about 45 minutes from here before I buy from sams.. It's all local, grain fed pork and angus beef. I know they are fair priced on whole hogs ($1.69lb 180lb avg), but I'm not sure about smaller cuts. Worth a look anyways.

 

[corn cob]

Many, Many moons ago, around holidays, I used to buy spares by the case through a guy at a local packer. if my memory serves me they were 3 1/2 downs...30# Case...so about 10 slabs per case...Never had a problem with quality, because he was the quality control guy on the packing line...In your case I would hand select, and try to get a volume discount....

Fun!

 

[danielh]

Yeah I wouldnt have been worried if it were a local packer.. But you sometimes never know what you're going to get when you deal with the giant companies. And we dont have a good local place here, at least that I'm aware of.

I'm hoping i can afford the other place I was talking about. Dewig Meats in Haubstadt, IN. A family friend who used to have a hog farm told me about them. Said its a super clean facility. Wish it were a little closer, but i wouldnt mind making an hour trip once a month or so for quality goods.

 

[richoso1]

I've never had a complaint buying by the case. Go for it.

 

[pops6927]

I was a meat manager for 25+ years and handled thousands and thousands of cases of meat products and byproducts. Most the time the quality is good and consistent; no company wants to be known as having spurious products that are incnsistent and bad quality - they'd go out of business faster than you can say the goverment is out of money! And, if you find a rack that is inconsistent with the others in the case you should be able to return it for an exchange for better quality product.

 

[carpetride]

I've been buying 2-2.5 cases more recently and they stay pretty consistent. I would prefer smaller ones but have a hard time finding them. Seems like the cases I get tend run closer to the high side on weight.