Think Twice Before Buying Meat At Target

There are quite a few Target food shopping hacks that will change your life, such as signing up for a RedCard to save a bit of money on groceries. The chain has lots to offer consumers, especially when you consider just how easy it is to overspend at the store when you only intend on picking a few items. However, you might want to think twice about buying meat at Target for a very simple yet important reason. Unlike a lot of other grocery stores, Target does not employ an on-site butcher or have an actual meat department, which can be problematic for a few important reasons.

Along with concerns about the quality of the meat you're buying, the lack of a butcher means that customers can't have select cuts of meat trimmed to their liking and will be unable to request any special orders. That means you probably won't find a suitable cut for a seared filet mignon and mushrooms recipe. Additionally, butchers frequently source meat from local distributors, and this practice is less likely when you're dealing with a chain store that doesn't offer an on-site butcher, who would normally be responsible for ordering items.

Target sells an assortment of beef, chicken, pork, and seafood. A lot of the meat selections are frozen, and there are many options courtesy of the chain's Good & Gather private label, along with a somewhat limited selection of meats from name-brand providers like Tyson and Butterball. It's not entirely clear where Target sources its brand of meat products. However, the store's organic steak is provided by a company called Verde Farms, which specializes in organic, grass-fed beef that doesn't contain antibiotics or additional hormones.

When it comes to what customers think about the store's meat selection, the Good & Gather all-natural ground beef has received mostly five-star reviews on the website, but only a little more than half of the consumers who sampled the product would recommend it to others. As for the negative reviews, one complained about "too many white hard gristly bits," which seemed to be a common theme in many of the criticisms. With respect to the chain's private-label steak, just consider what a self-proclaimed market team lead from Target had to say on Reddit: "It's pretty good and I'd say great for the price but [it's] not as good as a place with its own butcher and it will never touch a local butcher shop."