"Costco butchers may not custom-cut meat for you, but they will let you in on the little-known secret about the best time of year to buy ground beef from the wholesaler. If you think about it, there must be certain seasons during which there tends to be more unsold, high-quality steak that can then get ground up and sold. And indeed, there are!"
"One Reddit commenter wrote that an employee from the meat department once said that the best time to buy Costco ground beef is right after major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. It makes sense. Costco has to order enough steaks to make sure there's more than enough supply for holiday shoppers. But once the holidays are over, any leftover high-quality meat reportedly goes right into the grinder, meaning that's some fancy ground beef you're getting toward the end of the year."
"Another employee from the meat department wrote that Costco butchers don't just grind up nice steaks around the holidays. "Usually the first grind of the day is used with steaks from the one or two days before," they wrote. Another employee confirmed that "any steaks left over from the previous day ... must be ground and sold before 2 p.m." So the earlier in the day you get to the meat department and make your selection, the better the chance you're getting high-quality meat."
Post-holiday periods immediately after Thanksgiving and Christmas produce surplus high-quality steaks at Costco that often get ground into ground beef. Meat-department employees confirm that leftover rib roasts and steaks approaching their sell-by dates are used in the first grind or processed soon after, yielding superior burgers. Daily practices include using steaks from the previous one or two days for the first grind and requiring any overnight steaks to be ground and sold before mid-afternoon. Arriving early in the day increases the likelihood of purchasing ground beef made from fresher, higher-quality cuts.
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