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Where do you guys buy the large amounts of meat for your catering jobs. Most things I have found at Sams but thing like Turkey legs I dont ever see. I have seen places where I can buy one or two but not 100....
See if you can make friends with a Meat manager with a major chain Like Krogers. Tell him you are a smoker and bribe him with some samples occasionally.
Talk to a local steak house of any of the restaurants and see who they get their meat from. Then contact them and see what kind of rates you can get them ask a local meat market what they would charge you for stuff by the case.
Also if you have a costco or sams around they will sell by the case too.
Funny- I just asked our local smallish grocery store in East Texas, Brookshires Brothers, about turkey legs since all they had were the 2 pack that were already "smoked" up. He said they could order them, and right now they were $.99/lb for a 30 lb case and his best guess was there were probably 18-20 of them in a case. I'm going to keep asking around since I don't need them this second and see if that's pretty standard around here or not.
Don't be shy in asking around. If the restaurant or grocery store has a good relationship with their supplier then they'll be happy to pass on a referral for more business, especially in these times.
I became friends with a local Q joint guy who caters large events but not really interested in smaller say 50ish plate events. I buy my meat from him and since I can't handle large events, he sells to me at wholesale.
Ask local meat markets who their wholesalers are; many times they will cater to an individual for cases of butts, loins, COV beef subprimals, etc., cash and carry. Use what you need and freeze the rest, bring out a piece at a time.
Thanks for all the input. Im in Rio De Janerio right now listening to some kind of a demonstration out in the street from my office. I will try some of this out once I get back to good ole TN in about 4 weeks......Obrigado-Chow