Let's Talk About USDA CHOICE Beef (#KnowYourBeef)

Let's Talk About USDA CHOICE Beef (#KnowYourBeef)


Americans eat more meat per person than almost any other country in the world. Only Luxembourgers eat more meat than Americans do but still the average American consumes about 270 lbs of meat per year (yikes!). In order to feed our people, we need to produce A LOT of beef.

Thankfully these days, the United States produces some of the best beef in the world. The average steak sitting in your local supermarket is usually better than what you will find in almost every other country in the world. Our supply chain is of extremely high quality and has been refined over the last 50 years.

Unfortunately, our USDA Quality Grades are not as refined. The USDA grades billions of dollars worth of beef any given year. Only about 2% of the beef gets the USDA Prime Label, but almost HALF of it (45%) grades as USDA Choice.

To the uneducated beef lover, Prime is Prime and Choice is Choice. In reality, the very best Choice steak is closer to USDA Prime than it is to USDA Choice.

Confusing? Yes it is.

And this is why beef prices vary so much from supermarket to supermarket and why Meat N' Bone's USDA Choice beef can be slightly pricier than what you will find in our local supermarket.

percent of intramuscular fat for USDA quality beef

Beef Is A Commodity

If a price is too good to be true, well it probably is the case. If two steaks of the same grade are priced too differently, they are probably not the same grade.

We sell Premium Quality Meats at Supermarket Prices. But our meats are leaps and bounds above ANYTHING your supermarket butcher has to offer.

What Else Makes Meat N' Bone Special?

We only source from specific farms and vendors and each one is vetted for high quality. If we cannot find a product, we mark it out of stock. We do not sacrifice quality.

Aside from the grading of our beef, our aging standards are far superior than those of your supermarket butcher which ages beef, at most, for about as week. All of our premium cuts are dry aged for 21 to 30 days and then wet-aged for another 30-50 days. This guarantees tenderness, texture and flavor.

We hand-cut EVERY steak, which means we inspect each piece carefully, we trim away the fat and we make every steak meet our rigorous standards. Last but not-least we vacuum-seal, which makes a HUGE difference.

Good meat is not cheap and cheap meat is not good.

Older Post Newer Post

RSS