Now remember I have been out of it for 10 Years. So don't you all gang up on me. However, if you will give me some constructive feedback about this comparison. Give me your honest pros and cons. Thanks.
2 primal rounds weight 173.5 lbs. (I am going to guess at the price to a store) $2.29 per lb. or $397.32 cost to your store. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I took this price right from the USDA composite primal values as well as the boxed beef cuts.
Now I am going to break it down into trimmed sup-primal cuts (boxed beef) and put the current wholesale value on them. Like if you bought them separately. I also priced all the trim at the current wholesale market price of $3.20 except for the 73%.
1) peeled knuckle 22.32 lbs. @ 3.05 = $69.76
2) cap off top round 30.89 lbs. @ $3.40= $105.03
3) bottom round flat 28.7 lbs. @ $2.75 = $78.92
4) eye rounds 11.39 lbs. @$3.09 = $35.20
5) boneless shank meat 12.23 lbs. @3.20 = $39.14
6) heel meat 9.95 lbs. @ $3.20 = $31.84
7) 85% trim 17.28 lbs. @ 3.20 = $55.30
8) 73% trim @ 1.95 = $4.87
Fat & bone 36.32 lbs. -----------------00
Building the primal round backwards your purchase cost would be $420.06
Now if these numbers are close or possibly on target. That means you could only spend $22.74 on labor cost to fabricate the primal rounds into the boneless cuts. Now you know you can't do it for $22.74. That's not counting the cut loss and shrink, to get it to these boneless cuts.
I'm going to gang up on you lol yea you been gone to long and those years with the packers ruin you lol
Mr Packer man lol check your prices again
Also let me say, I'm 73 year old, I believe I can still break on the rail a full round and have it ready to cut in 16 to 18 mins, I generally always made 21.00 dollars a hour, so that cost me 6.50 ???
Now take in to account you have to go in the cooler, get your boxes, cut them open, cut the bag open, get rid of all the blood off the block and start trimming your product before cutting, as to just pushing the round out on the rail. I think you should take that time into consideration, I have already broke the round and trimming it out.
Now as a old school cutter, you know that oo on the weight of bone and fat want get it, You going to mix the shank meat with the fat to make 73% any you don't use will go into the 85%
The heel will be worked up into cube steak and stew meat. which I notice is missing from your cutting list
Now to a important part, how long with that box meat hold up in the meat case compare to that beautiful hanging meat. You got to reduce the box on the morning of the third day, The hanging on the 5th day
Anyway as old as I am and was running a market to make money I will go with the hanging, especially if it has a deli
You think these boys would be cutting hanging if they weren't making money??
I guess the honey-moon is over Leon. LOL> So lets take off the gloves. Now my test is not a retail cutting test. It is a wholesale cutting test. In other words I took the pieces that you would create when you bust up the round in (16 to 18 minutes) and put it back together. I made no cube steaks, or stew beef or anything like that. I was only comparing the fact that all those box beef cuts are available without the labor, cut loss and shrink.
Now let me tackle the fact that I put no value on fat or bone. You said, you use that shank meat and blended it with fat to make your 73%. Well now, I am going to introduce you to the "Pierson Square". The Pierson Square is how the big packer formulates the cost of ground beef accurately. So as not to get too technical I am going to say that maybe we would have 12 pounds of fat off of 2 primal rounds. As I don't have a true cutting test I have to use a little" Kentucky windage", LOL> the wholesale test only shows a total poundage of fat and bone of 36 lbs.
Now using the Pierson Square it tells me I need a 6 to 1 ratio of 85% lean vs. pure fat to make the 73% hamburg. Well we only have 12 lbs. of boneless shank meat therefore we can only it in proportion with the fat. 12 lbs. of 85% lean and 2 Lbs. of fat. Now lets cost this batch out.
12lbs. of boneless shank (value of ground round) $3.20 plus (we can only us 2 lbs of fat) valued at "0" = $38.40. Now we divide this amount $38.40 by 14 pounds of meat and that = $2.75 per lb. cost for your ground beef.
Now I ask you this Leon old buddy. Why would anybody what to take that beautiful lean boneless shank meat and grind it with pure fat to lose money???????? Give the darn fat and bone to the bone man and "put the meat where the money is".
The shank meat in the round can be used as ground round according to USDA & FSIS as long as its used in proportion to the primal round. That means if you had two primal rounds you can grind up both shanks with the heel and other lean meat to make your ground round. But if you had extra round shanks hidden in the cooler and stuck them in the batch you then would be in violation.
Leon there are mighty smart people running those meat factories, allot smarter than me. They render every pound of fat that they can get their hands on and make a fortune on it. In the packing house grinding departments "fat" is poison. It belongs only in two places, on the cuts of meat going out the door to the retailers or put to rendering.
Not meaning to step on the two of you toes but I cut only hanging beef and all my shank meat is mix with the fat. I have cut meat over 35 years, do a lot of farm butchery classes. I get more profit from sides than I would from box and give my customers a better product. but to each his own, I don't mind labor if my product is better.
Coalcracker one thing I can say about you my friend, you have a sense of humor, I know you got that in the years you cut meat because the packers had you to busy trying to find ways to sell that box stuff LOL
Now you love that box meat but many of us see it as evil, spawned by the devil lol
In better words to put it,
I would rather go to a high class place ( Hanging beef )and spent a couple hundred dollars on a lady from there than spend two dollars on one leaning against a light pole ( box meat ) ( wink )
BUT let me say, I appreciate you bringing this to the board, I'll give you the credit you due, young cutters and old ones as well can learn from your knowledge
Coalcracker a few video's on how our trade is coming back
The first Kari Underly that is opening the Muscolo Meat Academy
Below visiting three independent butcher shops in the San Francisco Bay Area and reveal how the job has become a whole lot hipper and more desirable than it used to be. This generation of foodies and meat lovers want to know where their meat comes from and as a bonus have a relationship with their butchers (just like the old days). Watch and see how your boutique butcher shop is helping make the connection between the farm, the meat and what you eat!
Well guys your ganging up on me, and Leon is the ring-leader. But that's ok my hide is as thick as my head (lol). Now lets get back to the ground beef. The Pierson Square has a shop name and its called "the sausage makers square". Its been around along time. Now weather or not you use rail beef or boxed beef the square never lies. I wish I can draw the square for you but I don't know how to do it on a computer. So I am going to do it long hand.
If you are going to make lets say 73/27; You put the number 73 in the middle of the square; in the left hand corner you put your lean percentage on top. 85%. Right under it you put your fat trim %, in this case its fat 0 percentage. Now you subtract 0 from 73 and you get (73). Now you subtract the ground beef you want to make in this case 73% (in the middle of the square) from the 85% lean and you get 12. Now what the square is telling you is that you need 73 units of 85% lean and 12 units of fat. A unit could be lug, it could be tub or a chicken crate. It really doesn't matter, you can call the numbers pounds if you wish. Some people convert it to percentages.
In this case the batch size is 85 lbs. This means you need 73 pounds of shank meat at 85% lean and 12 lbs. of fat. I don't know what the current prices are so I will take the current 85% price from the USDA sheet with shipping cost included. $2.50 per lb. However, I believe the boneless shank you bone from your rail beef will cost you more than that but we will stick with $2.50.
Therefore 73lbs of 85% at $2.50 per pound = $182.50. And lets not put a value on the fat. Let's say its "free", however you know that you paid for that fat when you bought your rounds. So you be the judge as how you want to cost the fat. But be honest about it. Because we put no value on fat you simply divide the $182.50 by 85 lbs. and your cost of this ground beef is $2.16 per pound. Not including labor or packaging. If you want to put the cost of the round on the fat lets say you paid $2.50 per lb. for the round so then the fat must be worth $2.50 per lb. too.
In this case the value of the 12 lbs. of fat now becomes 12lbs x 2.50 = $30. So lets add the shank meat cost $182.50 + $30= $212.50 divided by 85 lbs. = $2.50 per pound for your cost of ground beef.
85% lean 73
73
fat 0 12
85 85
I'm not trying to convert anybody to box beef "been there done that" for over 25 years. Nearly half of my career was devoted to that. Your business is your business. What I am trying to do here is let you know that there is a way to know what your cost are when making ground beef instead of shooting from the hip.
When the packer makes ground beef he uses a "least cost formula" They never grind fat for reasons we discussed in previous emails. Its just to costly and you need lots and lots of lean meat to cover the fat. The least cost formula is set up in a computer; they begin costing using 50/50 trim, then 60's if they have them, then 65% trim, then 70% trim if they have them then 75% trim and so on and so forth until they reach 90%. When they hit the "magic number" and ring the bell that's the way they grind. That's why they call it "least cost".
Now this computerized least cost formula goes on every day all day especially as the market prices changes. Just like the stock market. The ticker tape is constantly changing and they constantly know what their least cost formulas are on every single category of ground beef.
Like the guy once said. DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER!
i am not shooting today. The numbers don't lie. He also gave everyone a nice formula to use when calculating their ground beef prices. That was his whole point in the post.
my opinion is that working on rail beef is going to be more physically damaging as years go on. Working boxed beef robs us of learning true butchering skills. Both have their pros and cons.
Today what meat consumers will buy is much narrower than what they used to buy. I am not convinced we would always be able to sell everything from a carcass when its hard enough to sell everything from boxes.
-- Edited by fdarn on Monday 24th of August 2015 10:43:56 AM
