Cost of living: Offal, cheap meat cuts back on menu as shoppers hunt for better deals

Cheaper meats are surging in popularity as shoppers seek relief from soaring grocery prices, giving grandpa’s old dinner favourites a surprise comeback. Gary Hine, owner of The Naked Butcher in Mundaring, says offal was out of favour in the late 80s, 90s and 2000s but “a lot more” people were looking into it for its nutritional benefits, especially those on paleo and keto diets. “The popularity has increased,” Mr Hine told The West Australian. “Steak and kidney hasn’t had a market for years and are now becoming popular again.” Customers have also been trying to save cash by stocking up on weekly specials, filling their freezers with the best deals. “In the past they might have bought four or five of them whereas now they’re buying 10 or 15,” Mr Hine said. They were also buying whole cuts of beef, lamb, pigs - even sides, quarters and whole carcasses - and doing the slicing themselves. “We’re seeing numbers going through that we’ve never seen before,” Mr Hine said. “We shut our website down over the Christmas break, I reactivated it on January 7 and had to de-activate it on the 11th because we just got inundated with orders. “In those four days, we sold 11 whole bodies of beef as quarters, sides or whole carcasses.” Anticipating popularity during winter, The Naked Butcher had been stocking up on beef cheek, osso bucco and ox tail - which fall into the offal category - for the past six months but stocks were already exhausted, Mr Hine said. Sourcing them was becoming hard because they were hits in restaurants, which offered a higher dollar per kilo rate to wholesalers, he added. While shoppers were looking for cheaper alternatives, the reality was everything had gone up - even offal. “If you compare it to a beef primal, it is cheaper but ... the problem is there are no cheaper alternatives anymore,” Mr Hine said. “What consumers were buying pre-COVID, they may be able to pick up somewhere for $10-12kg. Those prices at a wholesale are above that now. “Our pork supply went up 30 per cent two weeks ago, the price of beef is continuing to rise and with grains not coming out of the Ukraine, it’s only a matter of time before chickens start to rise.” He said butchers had no choice but to pass on some of the price rises, with packaging, crumbs and marinade all going up. Sausage skins alone jumped from $55 per bundle to $65 in the past three weeks. Country Women’s Association of WA president Elaine Johnson said a member asked her recently if the group’s famous cookbook should be modernised and she was glad to have said no, given the resurgence of the old fashioned fare it still contains. “I don’t know that I’d want sheep’s head soup but we left them all in there because they do have this historical significance,” Ms Johnson said, laughing from her Quairading home. “We think that perhaps it’s better to leave it how it is, and the way the economy is going, we might be looking at some of those old-style recipes. “My husband loves tripe. I remember my mother cooking tripe for my father always and making patties from the leftover tripe afterwards.” As a child, she wouldn’t have eaten the patties knowing what was in it but it was “very well disguised and I thought my mother had invented some great new recipe”. “She had actually ... you have to be clever. “And I suppose things like lamb’s fry and kidneys could come back into the fore. “Your cheaper cuts like gravy beef cook up very well if done correctly, so that would be my suggestion. “And be more inventive and add more vegetables. The old fashioned dumplings in the casserole is not a bad idea either - makes the meal go further.” Ms Johnson said shoppers seeking to save money could start considering corned meats and revisiting rabbit, while chooks and ducks in backyards could become even more popular. She also recommended bacon hocks for a tasty, protein-rich and thrifty soup.