Bokehrd/Getty Images
As grocery prices continue to spiral upward, we’re all looking to balance cost with quality. And that’s more true when it comes to meat than pretty much anything else, because the quality and sourcing of something as simple as a chicken breast can be the difference between a delicious meal and a dangerous brush with food-borne illness. So, it’s important to know which grocery store meat departments to avoid.
Of course, grocery stores vary wildly, with some of them employing skilled professionals and essentially running an in-store butcher’s shop, and others just chucking pre-packaged meats into their coolers and hoping for the best. These obvious indicators do tell us a lot about quality, but not a lot about value, so some of the stores on this list might surprise you. Hopefully, though, it’ll help you make better choices when it comes to stocking up on grocery store meat in the future. And when you’re done, why not check out the very best grocery store meat departments in our ranking of fifteen? That way, you’ll be ready to make the best possible grocery shopping choices the next time you need to pick up a couple of steaks on your way home.
Trader Joe’s
The Image Party/Shutterstock
Surprisingly, for a store where shoppers can pick up plenty of steals, the biggest problem with Trader Joe’s meat department is the prices. One of the reasons meat at T.J.’s is pricey is that the grocery store tends to package its food for smaller families. While this makes sense for the snacks and ready-made meals Trader Joe’s is best known for, it doesn’t work as well for, say, chicken thighs. The bulk-buy discounts we’re used to for meat really bring the price down, and most households of one or two people would usually just freeze the excess. Even controlling for this, however, meat at T.J.’s is priced higher than the same products at other stores. In fact, CNBC found that 1 pound of chicken was $6.49 at Trader Joe’s, while a pound of similar quality chicken cost $4.94 at Walmart.
On top of this, dark meat chicken is the same price as light meat chicken at T.J.’s, which is a red flag for pricing generally. Usually, dark meat has long been cheaper as it contains more fat and sinew and is therefore seen as harder to work with. In fact, this is an idea the poultry industry pushed in the ’80s and ’90s, when most dark meat was exported. Dark meat also has slightly more calories and cholesterol than white, so it has sometimes been painted as less healthy, although this is debatable.
TJ’s does stock some specialty products, but you’re likely to find them cheaper at another store. At the end of the day, if you do all of your shopping at Trader Joe’s and don’t eat a lot of meat, an additional trip to a better-value meat department might not be worth it. For real value shoppers, however, T.J.’s butcher’s department is best avoided.
Target
refrina/Shutterstock
Although you might not think of Target as a grocery store, the brand has been expanding its selection of fresh and frozen foods since it first started stocking groceries back in the ’90s. Like many other grocery stores with private-label products, Target largely sells its own produce and meat. This means that meat under the store’s Good & Gather brand comes from a wide selection of largely unknown suppliers, and so may be variable in quality. Target sets broad animal welfare guidelines, but white labelling makes actual supply chains somewhat obscure.
Additionally, Target doesn’t have an in-store butcher or specialist butcher’s department staff like many grocery stores do. Given that, as one Reddit user puts it, Good & Gather meat is “sometimes kinda pricey”, it seems like you may as well get your chicken, pork, and beef at a store with a department dedicated to the precise hygiene and prep needs of meat. Quality-wise, Target’s private label steak gets decent reviews, but that’s about all. A Reddit post about the other meats the store stocks is pretty damning, claiming “Chicken and pork quality has been terrible. Pork often has bone fragments in them, and the chicken I need to slice tons of excess fat and veins off.”
Aldi
QualityHD/Shutterstock
Aldi is great for a lot of things, but it arguably shouldn’t be your first choice for fresh meat. Its boneless chicken sometimes has bones in, according to Reddit, while other Reddit users have bought meat that turned out to be “Slimy [and] kinda gray”, even though they used it well before the expiration date. Perhaps more worryingly, there was also a USDA public health alert for ground beef from Aldi in 2023; soft, clear plastic had been found mixed with the beef in some packages. This isn’t a regular occurrence, of course, but it speaks to less-than-ideal packaging conditions and attention to detail somewhere in Aldi’s supply chain.
Finally, while Aldi does offer some amazing grocery deals, there are some issues with meat pricing. One Aldi shopper complained on Reddit that chicken is weighed in its packaging, so they end up paying for foam and plastic wrap as if it’s poultry. It should be mentioned that meat departments seem to vary widely by store, so you might get lucky and have an excellent local Aldi. Additionally, Aldi’s frozen meat tends to get good reviews, so you can stock your chest freezer without worrying about quality issues.
Whole Foods
Smith Collection/gado/Getty Images
Similar to Trader Joe’s, the biggest problem with Whole Foods’ meat department is its prices. Unlike Trader Joe’s, though, these prices aren’t surprising. There’s a reason Whole Foods got that ‘Whole Paycheck’ nickname, after all. Shockingly, though, the meat department might be the priciest part of Whole Foods. This is where the store charges the biggest premiums when compared to other supermarkets.
Yes, you can get organic and specialist products at Whole Foods, including in the meat department, but these days, that isn’t unusual. A few years ago, its organic chicken was higher quality than chicken at other stores, for example. In fact, the brand was a pioneer of organic and high-quality produce within the U.S. Today, although Whole Foods is a Certified Organic Grocery Store, many other stores sell organic produce and meat that reach the same USDA national organic standards. That means there probably isn’t much difference between organic meats at Whole Foods and at other retailers where they’re a better value, as Whole Foods’ practices have been picked up by more of the industry.
In some cases, the exact same suppliers may even be used by multiple grocery stores. This is particularly likely, and less obvious, if you buy store-brand or white-labelled products. Paying more for what could be the same product might seem ridiculous, but it happens! And in some ways, it can be seen as a good thing. After all, it means you can often find Whole Foods quality without dropping that whole paycheck.
Walmart
refrina/Shutterstock
Despite the fact that there are over 4,600 Walmarts in the U.S. alone, no one seems particularly excited by the grocery giant. And that extends to its meat department. In fact, according to Consumer Reports, a whopping 74% of Walmart customers had a complaint about the store. In the same report, those surveyed called out Walmart’s meat and poultry specifically, labelling poor quality and talking about a lack of variety in many stores.
Those quality complaints were probably justified, as a lot of Walmart’s meat is lower grade than you might find elsewhere; according to one Reddit thread, Walmart sells more USDA Select meat than most stores, which is one grade down from the better USDA Choice most people are used to. If you are shopping at Walmart, be sure to check meat labels and go for Choice if it’s available. To be fair to the chain, Walmart is a store more focused on price than quality, and that’s reflected in its meat department. If there are any products you might want to spend a little more on to ensure great quality, however, they’re probably meat, poultry, and seafood.
