British BBQ Society Forums

Just been to Asda.

On their Butchery counter they have packs of ribs for £3.50/kg. Bought the two packs they had. I know this is not a particularly keen price, but I don't see them in a whole sheet very often, and they look nice and meaty!

Also, they have pork shoulder joints on Special at £2.20/kg, and bone-in Pork picnics for around £6 to £7 a pack. I bought a nice piece for £6 that will cut into two joints for me

bert wrote:Hi Frank,

Get yourself a bookers card/membership (Toby said in another thread that he help you do this through the society if you have problems).

I pay;
Fresh belly, with/without ribs around £2.50 kilo
Frozen meaty ribs with most of the belly still attached £2.50 kilo (freecarn, spanish very good quality, no boar taint)
Whole fresh pig, around £2.15 kilo (+/- £150 for a 65-70) make sure you specify female.
I normaly get a whole pig and break it down to; legs for the spit, shoulders for competition, about 30 lbs of streaky and loin eye bacon, 15lbs sausages, tenderloins and "skinny" ribs.
Keeps us going about 2 months, and the bacon alone is worth more than the pig cost!!

Supermarket specials can be a great source of bargains but lack consistency of price and quality.

Hope this helps

Rob

I guess my post was not too relevant then

Those prices are really good!

I'm hopefull of getting on the Bookers list, but till then I have to grab what I can, and its the first time I've seen whole ribs for ages.

HI Frank, I appreciate your post, I tend to stay away from booker meat unless I am buying a whole ribeye (or several as the comp teams know) or catering packs of bacon, Supermarkets rarely have whole racks unless you ask at the counter, its always good to know which supermarket has what in store.
Cheers
Toby

Frank,

The Society can help you with a Booker card, however you'll have to remember you need decent storage space to buy from wholesalers. For example the ribs Robert mentioned above come in 10KG boxes so that's about 5 untrimmed racks which requires a bit of freezer space

The prices you got from the Supermarket are not too bad apart from the ribs which I'd say are bit pricey as you mentioned also. Supermarket meat is ok, particularly if you're only cooking for a small family or just a couple, it's cheap and the quality is normally acceptable, quite good sometimes even, but it can vary quite a bit. There will be plenty of people on here who will have found your post useful though, so thanks for that!

Personally I don't buy meat from the supermarket because I can get much better meat from my local butcher. The problem with high street butchers is that the price point is generally higher, but if you get friendly with your butcher, discuss what you do on hte BBQ, even bring him in a few samples you might find you get more "special" deals. You'll most likely find he ensures you always get choice cuts too, unless he's a w**ker of course in which case find a new butcher

My butcher Jennings, in Caversham, Reading are absolute stars, they hold nice pieces of meat in for me, they age my brisket, they even sharpen my butchery knives for me. I can't discuss the prices I get as they sponsor my competition team so I get special prices, but their general prices aren't uncompetitive they can always tell me exactly where my meat came from and exactly when it was killed. There's still plenty of good Butchers up and down the country and we need to support these guys before the supermarkets and wholesalers destroy them.

Ha ha just read my post back to myself I should go work in PR for the Guild of Quality Butchers

Bone in Pork Picnics... Interesting. I have never seen anything like that in our local branch. Is your store a Big one Frank? Whilst I do have a regularly source, I might go for a ride out tomorrow, it always good to have other places to look.

Cheers for the heads up!

All Weather Griller wrote:Bone in Pork Picnics... Interesting. I have never seen anything like that in our local branch. Is your store a Big one Frank? Whilst I do have a regularly source, I might go for a ride out tomorrow, it always good to have other places to look.

Cheers for the heads up!

Its one of the biggest in the area. I must admit that I have not noticed them before (the picnics that is). They are a nice sized joint, I must admit. And at around a £1 per Lb I thought they were good value.

I also asked them if they had any brisket but they said "No, thats a winter meat"

"Winter Meat" Love it.

Cheers Frank

Thanks for the link. He's about 35 mile from us, so definately worth a trip over - especially if he has salt marsh lamb.

I've dropped the pork and ribs into the freezer for now. We have family commitments this weekend, so I'll hopefully get chance to do something next week. I'm hoping to experiment with a few rub and sauce recipies, so I'll give them a go.
I can't do anything too precise on my old ECB.