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  1. #1
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Question for grocery professionals.

    We feed our dogs a homemade diet. We have a lot of dog so we buy in bulk. Recently we scored two huge sales at a chain grocery store. The first was for .99/lb boneless skinless chicken breast that was originally on sale for $1.79/lb. The second was for .99/lb boneless pork loin that was not on sale and originally priced at $2.99/lb. This is huge for us and we filled a freezer, 85 lbs of which was pork.

    As far as I can tell, this particular store wound up with a whole bunch of meat that was due to expire at the same time so they dumped it. This happened on two very separate occasions. The store is in a relatively financially depressed area but is part of a very large chain that usually overprices its food.

    My questions are these. How does this work? Does this particular store stock too much of a particular kind of meat because they over order then get rid of it? Do other stores send them their meat when it's about to expire? Do grocery stores dump expiring product on a particular day or at a particular time?

    I really want to predict this kind of thing so that I can get it without driving to another state to get it wholesale. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

  2. #2
    Senior Dog shellbell's Avatar
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    The trick is to learn your store, and when thing go on "manager special"....this is usually when it is close to expiration. For a store around here, that is Wed am. And unfortunately for legal reasons, they have to destroy anything actually expired...I asked about the possibility of getting it cheaper for the dogs

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  4. #3
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shellbell View Post
    The trick is to learn your store, and when thing go on "manager special"....this is usually when it is close to expiration. For a store around here, that is Wed am. And unfortunately for legal reasons, they have to destroy anything actually expired...I asked about the possibility of getting it cheaper for the dogs
    I will map that out. Thank you.

  5. #4
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    and some stores change the tag of the date of the food to expire. so be careful.

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  7. #5
    Senior Dog sparky's Avatar
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    I used to be a butcher(many moons ago). Once a piece of meat is cut, be it chicken, pork or beef, it begins to oxidize. Different meat oxidizes at a different rate. We would go through the case everyday and anything within 2 days of expiration was marked down. When it came to 1 day deep discount. After that it went into ground beef or sausage. If the outdated meats were too far gone(our decision) it went into the "bone can". This went to a soap manufacturer.
    It used to be illegal to re-date a cut of meat. There was no rhyme or reason as to when the meats were marked down.
    Keep in mind this experience was in the 80's.
    Bottom line- if I wouldn't eat it I wouldn't feed it to my dog.

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  9. #6
    Puppy TanyaAD138's Avatar
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    You may have to call the store and find out their details ... BUt have you thought of looking into local butchers or farms? ... Alot of those places have "scraps" they'll sell for cheap/nothing.

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  11. #7
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TanyaAD138 View Post
    You may have to call the store and find out their details ... BUt have you thought of looking into local butchers or farms? ... Alot of those places have "scraps" they'll sell for cheap/nothing.
    The farm I used burned down. It was one of only two USDA approved in the state. They're going to rebuild but I am a little soured by some of the smaller local farms. They tend to cater to very small orders and are really expensive where Blood Farm would sell us an entire cow cut rate because their operation was so efficient. They were really cool. Their meat came from their own and local farms and they butchered all of it.

    I should say too that none of the meat I'm getting at these clearance sales are day before expirations. The pork loin was four days out and tastes very good. We do eat what the dogs eat just because it's economical to do so but at 5-6 lbs a day (depending on the fat content), I need to be hyper conscious of price.

  12. #8
    Puppy TanyaAD138's Avatar
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    Have you thought of going HUNTING??? O_O lol Thats a ton of meat! You might wanna invest in a meat grinder so you can buy cheap cuts of whatever and just grind it up and make pooch food ... Might be able to save some money that way rather than blowing off the chicken leg quarters @ 0.50/lb because "there isn't enough meat/Not enough packages"

  13. #9
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    I don't know why but as a general rule, meat in grocery stores here in MA is extremely expensive. I don't think I've ever seen a cut of anything at .50/lb except whole turkeys after the holidays. I do have a meat grinder on my KitchenAid and used it when we didn't have a lot of storage space but we now have four medium sized freezers for both the meat and the fruit and veg we grow so we can freeze and use through the winter. Those cheap-o GE freezers at Sams turned out to be a good deal.

    Total weight of our dogs is 328 lbs as of last week's exams so they plow through a lot of food and since two of them have GI issues and another has severe allergies, feeding them affordably is kind of a hobby around our house.

  14. #10
    Best Friend Retriever Polly Pipkin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bett View Post
    and some stores change the tag of the date of the food to expire. so be careful.
    Surely this is illegal? How can they get away with this? I didn't think that they were allowed to send food to other stores close to the expiration date, but I admit to naivete!
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