Thread: The price of meat these days is a joke.

Posted here as it's not funny enough for the jokes thread.

The price of meat these days is a joke.

The argument, that Britons (for example) pay $x.00/Kg in London, so why shouldn't we be charged, the same price here - fails as follows:

The price in London includes transporting the meat, 18,327 kilometres from Auckland (for example, could be Tauranga etc).

So if I am paying the same $x.00/Kg price as they do in London, then I want my meat, to be transported 9,163.5 Km and back again, before I buy it and I'd like to have proof that such has happened.

Logically the meat in NZ, should be London Price $x.00/Kg minus the cost of transporting meat 18,327 kilometres.
_____

And why can't I buy mutton? All the lamb legs in the supermarket are huge, I think they are Hogget labelled as Lamb, but where are the Mutton Packs?

Also the butchery process, now seems to include half a pelvis when you buy a lamb leg, or a pork leg roast.

Best to buy cancelled export orders, or shrink wrapped meat with export markings on it. They wouldn't try selling pelvis to the export market.

I'm serious about the pelvis, I boned out a large lamb leg I bought and cooked and compared it to skeleton illustration of a sheep. Clearly part of the pelvis was attached to the leg.

I emailed a marketing wallah at PaknSave, with photo and illustration and he wasn't having any of it. Nor could he answer the question of the missing mutton.
_____

Sea freight is cheap compared to road freight so the freight component is not that great on a per kilo basis.
Because of our very high supermarket margins (I would expect much higher than UK supermarkets that face more competition ) we pay a very high margin component in our purchase price, plus GST

Your post does highlight a great personal bugbear - meat left on the hill. If 20kg is left on the hill that is $300. Thats $100/hr for a second 3hr trip to get it, after tax ! who is earning that ??
If a hunter hasn't conditioned themselves to carry 40 - 50 kg (or more) loads at a time, make a second trip, the hourly rate is pretty good

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Sea freight is cheap compared to road freight so the freight component is not that great on a per kilo basis.
Because of our very high supermarket margins (I would expect much higher than UK supermarkets that face more competition ) we pay a very high margin component in our purchase price, plus GST

Your post does highlight a great personal bugbear - meat left on the hill. If 20kg is left on the hill that is $300. Thats $100/hr for a second 3hr trip to get it, after tax ! who is earning that ??
If a hunter hasn't conditioned themselves to carry 40 - 50 kg (or more) loads at a time, make a second trip, the hourly rate is pretty good

Yeah, producers get paid a pittance and consumers get fleeced.

this is why you support the local butcher...or better still find somewhere to run 2-3-5 sheep and knock one off every 6 months.
the pelvis thing......thats traditionally how a rear leg roast is cut up...you cut off hock and put in pelvis hole,for want of better name so it fits in meat dish... been cutting up muttons for 40 years and always get done this way..the leg thing is for export market I believe...or maybe to debone it for a "colonial goose"(bet not more than 1;50 members even know what that is) a few years back I went into butchers,saw the muttons hanging out back and promptly bought a rear leg roast WITH pelvis bit for $40 and was more than happy to pay it...feeds the whole family for main meal,sammies next day then shepherds pie following night...these days that roast gets cut into 3 bits for just the wife n I .
if cocky gets say $120 for sheep
freight to works say $10
killing charge of say $25
freight to butchers shop $ 10
butchers time to chop it up$ 25
your now up to $190..havent added in anything to run butchers shop or pay staff so lets add another $60 for nice rounded figures bringing us up to $250 now cut up that figure into all the cuts/chops/roasts and the price paid isnt too bad
but 100% agree its wrong that meat is cheaper in UK...butter is cheaper there and in OZ
we can buy ozzie UHT milk for same price and often times cheaper than local...supposedly fresh milk....I say supposedly as most everything other than blue top is reconstituted milk powder

Exactly the same story with milk. We pay the international price but of course there is no shipping here so the companies make that extra as a premium bonus.
Since losing my ram I have missed doing homekill and with the price of meat now gonna swap to Wiltshire's and get a ram

Agree with the posts above, but there's a lot of free and relatively easy to obtain meat running around in the hills. Don't waste it, adjust your cooking style. Bumblefoot has some excellent recipes on his lifestyle thread. I got some at the beginning of this week.

I had a friend that would go halves whenever he had a beast spare. I miss my mate but I never thought I would miss homekill so badly, The meat was just next level compared to what you get in the shops, and the salami & sausages from Counties Killing were great. Also when I defrosted some frozen rump from the shop vs homekill there was a lot of excess water from the store brought stuff.

Originally Posted by rugerman

Exactly the same story with milk. We pay the international price but of course there is no shipping here so the companies make that extra as a premium bonus.
Since losing my ram I have missed doing homekill and with the price of meat now gonna swap to Wiltshire's and get a ram

Bugger if you were down south island I could've helped ya out, we have a wiltshire ram that needs to move on

Just struck up a deal with the neighbor who runs a few cows.
Somehow he ended up with one with horns, so was going to be a PITA to get it to the works. It got the homekill treatment, and I get to put my butchers hat on for the opportunity to take half an animal. Gave him the same money he would have got for the 1/2 if it had been sent to the works. I get a lot more meat for my $$, and the quality of the meat is far superior to anything we see in the local supermarkets.
He's now talking of making this a yearly thing, as he gets 1/2 an animal butchered without much of his time or effort used. He was quite taken back by how well the meat is marbled compared to what he could go out an buy.

If you are prepared to front up with labour and enough money to make it cost neutral for the farmer, you might just get onto a winner.

Cutting up a Angus cow tonight was a false positive to a tb test only shame is its about a 10 year old cow it's a beefy tho so prob still better than meat ud buy from the supermarket

Worried about meat price, try dry dogfood, brand I normally buy gone from $155 to $220 a 15 kg bag.

Originally Posted by dannyb

Bugger if you were down south island I could've helped ya out, we have a wiltshire ram that needs to move on

you looking to change him out for another wilty???? if so,man do I have a deal for you.....

thats crackup I have only had so called colonial goose once about 25 years ago! and never heard or seen the term written down since Gold!

Last beef heifer we had homekilled using a homekill outfit (as opposed to killing and breaking it down ourselves) using the meatworks rate last October, worked out at $11/kg average across all cuts. Not cheap, but definitely cheaper than the supermarket.

If we do it ourselves (2 days for 2 people on the knives and mincer etc) it obviously comes down a lot more.

Last animals we sent to the works in March (2.5 year old beef heifers not producing decent milk) yielded $5.80 a kg on the hook. So you can see homekill does increase the meat cost somewhat.

Originally Posted by MarkN

Posted here as it's not funny enough for the jokes thread.

The price of meat these days is a joke.

The argument, that Britons (for example) pay $x.00/Kg in London, so why shouldn't we be charged, the same price here - fails as follows:

The price in London includes transporting the meat, 18,327 kilometres from Auckland (for example, could be Tauranga etc).

So if I am paying the same $x.00/Kg price as they do in London, then I want my meat, to be transported 9,163.5 Km and back again, before I buy it and I'd like to have proof that such has happened.

Logically the meat in NZ, should be London Price $x.00/Kg minus the cost of transporting meat 18,327 kilometres.
_____

And why can't I buy mutton? All the lamb legs in the supermarket are huge, I think they are Hogget labelled as Lamb, but where are the Mutton Packs?

Also the butchery process, now seems to include half a pelvis when you buy a lamb leg, or a pork leg roast.

Best to buy cancelled export orders, or shrink wrapped meat with export markings on it. They wouldn't try selling pelvis to the export market.

I'm serious about the pelvis, I boned out a large lamb leg I bought and cooked and compared it to skeleton illustration of a sheep. Clearly part of the pelvis was attached to the leg.

I emailed a marketing wallah at PaknSave, with photo and illustration and he wasn't having any of it. Nor could he answer the question of the missing mutton.
_____

Ok I'll say it

Isn't the whole point of this forum to NOT buy meat?