Where to buy meat

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scpatterson

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
OTBS Member
SMF Premier Member
May 1, 2009
939
14
Mcnairy County Tennessee
Where do you guys buy the large amounts of meat for your catering jobs. Most things I have found at Sams but thing like Turkey legs I dont ever see. I have seen places where I can buy one or two but not 100....
 
See if you can make friends with a Meat manager with a major chain Like Krogers. Tell him you are a smoker and bribe him with some samples occasionally.


Good luck! Worked for me.
 
Talk to a local steak house of any of the restaurants and see who they get their meat from. Then contact them and see what kind of rates you can get them ask a local meat market what they would charge you for stuff by the case.

Also if you have a costco or sams around they will sell by the case too.

Good Luck.
 
Funny- I just asked our local smallish grocery store in East Texas, Brookshires Brothers, about turkey legs since all they had were the 2 pack that were already "smoked" up. He said they could order them, and right now they were $.99/lb for a 30 lb case and his best guess was there were probably 18-20 of them in a case. I'm going to keep asking around since I don't need them this second and see if that's pretty standard around here or not.
 
Don't be shy in asking around. If the restaurant or grocery store has a good relationship with their supplier then they'll be happy to pass on a referral for more business, especially in these times.
 
I became friends with a local Q joint guy who caters large events but not really interested in smaller say 50ish plate events. I buy my meat from him and since I can't handle large events, he sells to me at wholesale.
 
Ask local meat markets who their wholesalers are; many times they will cater to an individual for cases of butts, loins, COV beef subprimals, etc., cash and carry. Use what you need and freeze the rest, bring out a piece at a time.
 
Thanks for all the input. Im in Rio De Janerio right now listening to some kind of a demonstration out in the street from my office. I will try some of this out once I get back to good ole TN in about 4 weeks......Obrigado-Chow
 
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