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It would be hard to imagine a meat department that did not sell ground beef. With its flavor, value and versatility, ground beef certainly earns its place in every meat case.
The answer used to be simple: the butchers would produce plenty of trimmings while they were breaking down sides of beef and working up the roasts and steaks. These trimmings were sorted according to leanness and ground up for hamburger, chuck, or ground sirloin. When I started working here in the mid 70s, grinding meat was my first job. There were times we would have so many extra trimmings that I would spend hours making thousands of beef patties for the freezer.
But with so much of the beef processing now being done out west before the beef is shipped, there is a lot less meat cutting (and a far fewer trimmings) at store level.
Many operations now buy tubes of beef that has already been ground once – it’s called “pre-ground” beef. This beef can just be ground again to make ground beef for the case, or it can be mixed with trimmings on hand to produce finished ground beef. There is nothing wrong with doing this, in fact it’s pretty convenient.
Why? Because it means we keep control over what goes into your ground beef and that control is really important to us – and we think it might be to you too. When we run short of trimmings, we would rather (and we do!) cut up perfectly good beef to create the trimmings we need for good old-fashioned ground beef.
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When you buy ground beef, it’s best to pay attention to the percentage of fat in it – not to the name on it. There are lots of marketing names in use: “chopped chuck,” “hamburger,” “ground-you-name-it.” However, these names vary from place to place and they do not necessarily mean that the meat in the package all came from particular cut of meat.
There is a narrow range, but at Village Market, the percentages are these:
- “Ground Chuck” 85% lean – lots of moisture, lots of flavor.
- “Ground Round” 90% lean – less fat, but still moist and flavorful
- “Ground Sirloin” 95% lean – little or no fat
As you likely know, all ground beef should be cooked thoroughly – to 160° F throughout!
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