One of the best ways to save money on your meat bill is to find a food store that has a pick 5 meat program, you can buy any 5 meat items for $19.99. Look for the packages that run $5.00 or more if you were going to buy off the pick 5. You can save as much as $5.00 to $6.00 buying a pick 5.
By Leon from Dalton, GA
Editor's Note: It looks like these Pick 5 programs are pretty common with smaller, more independent grocery stores. Check stores like Red Apple, IGA and Thriftway rather than the larger chains. If you find one, report it here in the feedback.
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My Thriftway, as well as Sun Fresh and Apple Market, regularly feature strip steak and pork loin in 10 pound and up slabs in cryovac. The pork is usually $1.69/lb, the steak $3.99/lb. I cut these up into a desirable thickness--1-1/4" to 1-1/2"--, wrap them in recycled produce bags--the thin, clingy kind--and freeze them. You can use the styrofoam dishes that are usually used to package steaks, chicken, pork chops, etc. to cover them in your freezer top and bottom to minimize freezer burn. That is usually not a problem, though, as they don't often last long enough to degrade that way. The steak slab can run to $50 or more but it is worthwhile.
E.W. James & Sons Supermarkets in my area (TN) has this program. My husband is the meat manager at one of their stores, and he has had as many as 80 varieties of Pick 5 items on hand. He has one of the best Pick 5 programs in his company, selling huge numbers of "sets" even when compared to stores much larger than his.
Save-A-Lot and some IGA stores in our area do Pick 5 as well, but as another poster warned, check the price per pound to make sure you are not paying more for the Pick 5 size than what it is regularly offered for... Save-A-Lot has been bad about raising the prices of the items, so you aren't actually getting a deal there. My husband uses the same price per pound on his as he does in the rest of the counter, and sometimes LESS because the Pick 5 size might also be considered a "value pack." Preparing the Pick 5 packages of weighted items (as opposed to sticking a Pick 5 sticker on a prepackaged item) is time consuming, and some meat department personnel get lazy and don't watch to make sure the prices on the packs total enough to actually give you a deal...
It is a great deal if used wisely.
Our's does this. They are called Prenger's Foods, in Macon MO.... Very small independant... Bet this catches on quick in a store near you.
Becareful though, sometimes you are not getting the deals you see in prices. Watch the weight of the product, and know what price the item sells for on a regular basis.
In WV there are 5 for $19.99 at Shop & Save and Food Lion. F
Our IGA in Amherst, Ohio has this offer too.
Carnival foods in Circleville Ohio have the pick 5 deal.
I live in northern illinois and we have Red Fox and Super valu, they have this. Saves me alot of money on meat.
In MS and states around piggly wiggly has this. and also about once a month. they have buy one (meat) and get one free.
In central and northeastern Louisiana, Mac's Fresh Market has this program.
There are two near our area, one just across the Fla state line (hwy 97) from Atmore, Al., the other one is located in Century, Fl.Both are Piggly Wiggly stores.
In south Texas Super S foods has that deal.
I just saw an ad for Pick Five in the Karns store in Middletown, Pa., the Karns in Hershey usually have the same sales.
Honey are you nuts I saved 10.77 from our pick 5 and we live in Berks County in PA. We have 2 one is Boyers and one is Redners. Hubby told me he gets the ones with the higher prices marked on them because of more weight.
In Bay Minette, Alabama, South Alabama, They have Piggly Wiggly stores and they have it all the time.
In S W Arkansas our Brookshire's have this program. It's great! They also do triple coupons off and on!
Avenue markets in Green Bay Wi does this. Lucky I can even see one store from here.
Buehler's stores in Northeast Ohio have the Pick 5 program. Occasionally, they'll run sales and you can get a 6th item free making it Pick 6 for $19.99!
Big M Markets in Walton, NY has this deal as well and I love it! They also have other things in the 5 such as breakfast sandwiches, huge packs of hot dogs, 4 packs of lunchables, deli salads etc. You can often get quite a variety of items and save almost $10 or more!
Green's Market in Winter Haven, Florida has this program. It's great!
First I've heard of this; I'm in West Texas.
I have over 20 years experience as a meat manager. When the pick 5 program first came out it was an excellent tool for us, the store, to make money. It is also an excellent program for the consumer if the store isn't inflating their price per pound and decreasing the quantity of product that you, the consumer, would ordinarily get.
The program is designed to save consumers money and make more money for the stores. The basic idea for the store is to build in a 25% profit by not having more than $3.00 cost in anything that is labeled for pick 5.
The consumer can and is most times taken advantage of by the store inflating the price per pound in order to boost the profit margin somewhat higher. For instance, just for this example, lets say boneless chicken breasts have a cost(wholesale) of $1.50/lb. so that 2 lbs. would have a total cost of $3.00 for the package.
The store would ordinarily sell these breasts for $1.99/lb. at a 25% profit. Do the math and $1.99 x 2lbs.= $3.98 for the package. They can't pick 5 that because the smart consumer would realize they are going to lose money rather than save it.
So the store inflates the price per pound of the breasts to $2.99/lb. and only put 1.5 lbs. in the package which makes the total price $4.49 and then they slap a pick 5 label on it and the consumer thinks that they just saved $.50 on the breasts and the store actually made 43% profit on that item. Who made out better, the consumer or the store?
This same scenario occurs on almost every pick 5 item that has to be weighed with a price per pound. Even some of the fixed weight items are inflated in retail price in order to show a savings to the consumer that really doesn't exist. It is for this reason that I do not like the pick 5 program.
I would prefer to give my consumers the most meat at the best possible price. Customers aren't stupid, they know we have to make some money in order to stay open, but they also should be aware that they don't have to be fleeced in order for us to do this either. I do not offer a pick 5 at my store any longer nor will I. I do however, have the best prices of any of the stores in town, beating my closest competitor by an average of 10-15%.
In today's economy wouldn't you appreciate getting more for your money and not making someone else rich while you try to make so little stretch? Be aware people of the way these programs work.
Find you a reputable store, and get to know your meat man by name, or better yet find you a good butcher shop and give them your meat business and you will probably find that you'll get more for less than what you would spend at the super market, with the added bonus of knowing you have the freshest meat available.
This is not a deal... it is an illussion, for example I bought 5 packs of cube steak the other day, 19.99 wow, No, 5 baby packs, aprox. 8oz per pack. 5 packs.. 2.5 lbs for 20 bucks. Reg. price. 6.99 per pound. which would be 17.50, for 2.5 lbs. You have paid more not less. I watched the meat man put it on the trays, kept taking meat off till there was only 7-8 oz per pack. Jessee James used a pistol to rob folks.....
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