Today I went to Costco, no Prime beef. Last time, also no Prime.
About a month ago they had it and I bought some steaks.
SO is the experiment over? Are you seeing Prime in your Costco?
Up until a few months ago there was Prime in California, Texas, basically West of the Mississippi. Then it started showing up in the East, and finally in NJ. I will be sad if I can’t get cheap Prime steaks any more. But maybe it is some seasonal thing, or a market glitch?
If you read this DO post about where you are and whether you have seen Prime this month.
We have always had prime in our Sacramento area locations including Woodland, Arden, Sunrise and El Dorado Hills. Every time I have been in there they have had prime although the marbling does vary time to time.
There have also been some instances where the choice looks better than the prime and I will go with those. Super marbled but had the choice label, maybe mismarked?
The packers have been cutting back production of late, in an effort to get sagging prices up.
So as a whole, demand is outstripping supply.
Prices have been rising steadily, as one would expect.
What you’re seeing is probably a result of that dynamic.
Last weekend I went to our local Costco and they had what they called “The Beef Roadshow.” Granted our Costco is across the street from the corporate headquarters so maybe this was a special event for that store, but they had almost every cut of prime steaks that you could pick the specific cuts that you wanted from the case and then they’d seal it up for you. I grabbed several 2" thick strips that had wonderful marbling. In fact, I’m grilling one for dinner tonight.
I was in the Yakima store today and they had prime sirloin, rib, and strip steaks, although none of them looked truly prime to me and the rib steaks/rib eyes weren’t cut very well. Prices weren’t bad though: $10/lb. We have an independent grocer that usually has very nice rib eyes for $7.99 and that’s where I normally get mine (when I’m not doing Flannery).
Chicago, Lincoln Park store yesterday, had strips and rib eyes labeled prime, which was a combo of some good prime, some ‘weak’ prime along with meat that was barely ‘choice’, but still labeled as prime. Definitely not up to past snuff. But I was able to dig through the amalgam to find some gold.
Picked up some Prime NY’s yesterday at our local Costco. I have seen Ribeye’s, NY’s and a few other select cuts just about everytime i’ve been to either the Redwood City or Foster City Costcos.
The costco near my house (and Freemott’s) usually has prime ribeyes and strips. Like him, I much prefer the ribeyes, but you do have to sort through them.
Not much selection last night, so I picked up a whole ribeye primal and sliced into steaks. Truly, horrifically bad meat. My 19 year old son and his buddies thought it was great though and ate the whole thing.
The meat cutters at my costco (LZ IL) package the prime meat around when they open in the morning and when it is gone, it’s gone for the day…sometimes I need a whole strip loin so I show up right at 10am and get to choose which one I want.
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