Meat Markdowns

Marked down meats are worth hunting for. I got 2 gorgeous porterhouse steaks today, well-marbled and over 2" thick, for $3.52 each. They were originally priced over $10 apiece.

Harris Teeter takes at least 30% (sometimes more) off the price when a fresh meat is about to expire (aka "short dated"). The new price is just put over the old one with a bright yellow sticker. They do things a little differently for pre-packaged meats (bacon, hot dogs, etc.) and specialty seafood (smoked salmon, crabmeat, seafood dips, etc., sold in the refrigerated case below the fresh fish). These items also have bright yellow stickers, but they are tear-off coupons that you hand to the cashier at checkout. These coupons are for $1 off, $2 off, etc., and many packages have more than one. I find they generally take 50 - 75% off the original price - sometimes even more! It's at the discretion of the meat manager at that particular store, so you'll find a lot of variance between locations.

Lowes Foods automatically marks their short dated meats by 50%. They typically have an area of the meat case where they put all their markdowns together. Sometimes this area is sad and pathetic, and sometimes it's an absolute goldmine. In my experience, the best time for these markdowns is late morning (10 - 11am). Much earlier than that and the butcher won't have pulled & stickered the short-dated meats yet. Much later and the markdown section has been picked over by other shoppers.

Food Lion and WalMart mark down short-dated meats, too, but I've never found anything worthwhile at either.

Keep in mind that short-dated meats are perfectly safe to use within a day or two of their expiration dates, or freeze immediately for later use. So even if you're just making a quick bread & milk run, take an extra few minutes to scan Harris Teeter for those yellow stickers, or check out the meat markdown "bin" in Lowes Foods. That's always when I've found my very best deals on meats - when I wasn't there to shop for meats at all.

One last tip: Make friends with the meat guy. Chat him up, find out when he does his markdowns, etc. Get his name and wave to him when you're in the store. If you make yourself one of his favorite customers, you'll be rewarded for it! I once found several Hormel marinated beef tenderloins ($9.99/ea) that were going out of date in 3 days. I asked the meat guy when he'd be marking them down. He offered to mark them down 50% on the spot for me if I'd buy them!

PS: No dinner post tonight - we're headed to the ballgame!