Q: Pink Slime Controversy? Not at Inboden's!
After repeated inquiries about “pink slime,” Inboden’s would like to inform our customers about our ground meat practices.
The pink slime controversy centers on TV reporting about a beef product that is actually called “Finely Textured Beef.” This product is used extensively in the meat industry both in food service (schools, restaurants, institutions) and in the retail (supermarkets) industry. It is usually found in ground meat chubs in 1 lb, 2 lb, 5 b and 10 lb units supplied by major packing companies to supermarkets.
Fine textured beef is also sold to supermarkets in 10 lb chubs that are coarsely ground. This coarsely ground product is opened at the supermarket and ground through a fine grinder plate. This ground meat product then blooms out or oxygenates and turns red. It is then placed into a service case or is packaged on trays for the self-service meat case. The supermarket industry has increased their use of pre-packaged pre-ground meat and chubs of coarse ground meats for regrind because of food safety issues. These safety issues include the risk of E-Coli. Beef packing plants routinely test ground beef for E-Coli; testing at the retail or supermarket level is not a common industry practice.
Although many in the retail supermarket industry profess the non-use of finely textured beef, it is undetectable to the human eye and does not need to be identified on the ingredient level. The use of finely textured beef is not uncommon and is often used in the supermarket industry.
What makes Inboden’s different? Inboden’s Meats is inspected by two governmental agencies; first, our local county Board of Health that follows the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) food code administered by the Illinois Department of Health. The DeKalb County Bard of Health inspects the retail area of our store; this includes our Deli, retail meat department, storerooms and rest rooms approximately three times a year. Secondly, our back meat department is inspected under the Illinois Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Meat and Poultry Bureau and federally supervised.
Inboden’s is inspected every day by an employee of the Department of Agriculture. Why is this? Inboden’s, with a few exceptions, does nothing differently than most supermarkets in the form of slicing, dicing, grinding or chopping; the difference being Inboden’s processes meat for the food service industry, which includes schools, restaurants and institutions. If your meat processing business exceeds a dollar amount exemption, it might comply with USDA guidelines and processes. These guidelines and processes are subject to rigorous inspection. Inboden’s receives high quality, locally produced and federally inspected beef, and then re-inspects it in-house before the beef product can be put into production.
Approximately five years ago, Inboden’s evaluated finely textured beef (pink slime) and decided that it did not meet our processing specifications. Inboden’s does not use any finely textured product; this provides consistent quality standards for our retail and food service customers. Inboden’s is currently the only retail meat processing facility in DeKalb County that is routinely testing for E-Coli. This is don’t on a continual basis in-house as well as by the Department of Agriculture. We also conducted Salmonella testing to establish base line sanitation operating procedures.
Inboden’s Meats feels that use of finely textured beef (GRAS-generally recognized as safe) is not harmful but is not conducive to our quality standards. We currently have on staff 4 certified sausage markers; whether it be ground beef or a sausage product we strive to exceed industry standards. This is evident in the awards that have been presented to us for our sausage and meat products.
If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to call at 815-756-5852.
Q: Why does your spiral honey ham command a price higher than five dollars per pound?
Answer: Most of the hams on the market are 33 to 35% waterweight added. This is not the case with our hand selected hams; we choose to use a ham that taste like hams used to taste: Dry cured the old-fashioned way and hardwood smoked like the hams from the old days. Inboden's spiral honey ham comes individually gift boxed and makes a great presentation.
These are also available year round with advanced notice.
Further reading on ham Click Here
Q: Do you have any other hams available?
A: Another great choice that we produce is our bone in traditional ham. This is a natural juice ham and contains less than 3% added water, an excellent hardwood smoked ham that proves itself with its taste. The proof is in the hams: the consumer receives a intensified ham flavor and less shrink from out of the oven.
Further reading on ham Click Here
Q: Why won't Inboden's take my order online?
A: Inboden's can be more precise, and the customers will receive better service.
~ Anatomical difficulties
~ Reducing back-and-forth emails
~ We feel that the personalized service should never disappear.
Q: Does Inboden's age all the beef they serve?
A: Yes, in fact Inboden's ages all of the beef we sell, a minimum of 30 days, before we put a knife to it. There are actually two ways to age beef, wet aging - the way we age beef at Inboden's and dry aging. Here's is a great explanation on the difference of wet-aging and dry-aging, "The nearly lost art of the great steak" written by Derrick Riches, posted on About.com.
Q: Where do you advertise your weekly sales, and where can I find your coupons?
A:
~ Inboden's sends our weekly ad direct to your email inbox every Wednesday, sign up at meatplace.com homepage. These sales run Thursday, Friday and Saturday until the end of day.
~ Like us on Facebook.
~ Our marquee On North First Street.
~ The newsprint DeKalb Daily Chronicle and its partner the Midweek.
~ A multitude of direct mail and other print media.
~ Coupons can be found at the Specials and Coupons page.
Q: What are beef grades?
A: You can find all kinds of information on beef grades on this link. (courtesy of bbqreport.com)
Q: How do I get your weekly sales flyer ad?
A: The weekly ad is placed in the DeKalb Daily Chronicle and the Midweek papers, on our website at meatplace.com, and also sent out on our Facebook account. If you wish to receive it via email go to meatplace.com and sign up or friend us on Facebook. The sales items are posted on Wednesday nights on our website & our Facebook page. Coupons are also posted on our web site and are usually good for a extended period of time, along with the use of coupons we use various other print media.
Q: Where does your meat come from?
A: The greatest majority of our beef is local. Our customers can specifically ask our cutter to request local and they would accommodate the customer’s request. This is also true with our pork and a great amount of our poultry.
Q: Why don't you use a number system in your meat department?
A:
~ Inboden's feels that number systems are not effective way to build a personalized customer relationship.
~ We feel that this can be a detriment to the elderly.
~ When running into your neighbor and chatting for a few minutes off to side, you happen to miss your number being called, do you begin the process of starting all the way at the end again?
~ Inboden's staff is 60 people strong and sometimes we have to call our Calvary to knock the long lines down.
We understand it may feel like baby steps inside of our building sometimes, but we strive to continue a level of service that far exceeds the big box stores. Inboden's far surpasses the national average of time spent in store shopping for 10 to 15 items.
Q: Do you support organic?
A: Inboden's does support organic. Inboden’s stocks both fresh and fresh frozen organic products. Many times organic produce is at the same price or lower than conventional produce. The same is not true for meats and cheeses.
Q: Is your seafood farm raised or wild?
A: Inboden's seafood is both farm raised and wild when available. During the Salmon runs we ship direct to our store and as for our Farmed Salmon we only source from farms that we know. One farm is in Nova Scotia in an estuary of the Bay of Fundy. The area has the highest tides in the world. This particular farm has tides ranging from 32 to 40 ft. This environment provides for a large water exchange and this large tidal exchange lends itself to very good fish school health, thus eliminating the use of pharma in the raising of the Salmon. Another farm in Alaska is near the mouth of a river emptying into the Cook Inlet.
Although the tides are not as high as in the Bay of Fundy, there is good tidal exchange and during spring and summer melt off from the mountains creates very large exchange of fresh water and sea water. This farm uses no pharma and gets great color by the use of crab shells in the fish meal, giving this product a great natural red color. We also get Salmon from Scotland and Norway. These farms must meet our standards for farmed fish although these farms use natural carotenoids from algae to get there color into the meat of the Salmon.
Our tilapia is farmed raised in a spring fed lake and just before harvest, the cage booms are brought to the area of the lake that is fed by the spring and allows the fish to purge in the cleanest water 7 to 10 days before harvest. This provides a cleaner, more flavorful fish. Our Chilean sea bass is only bought from suppliers that can provide proof that the harvesters of the sea bass are following international maritime protocols to insure the species is not over fished.
This assures the retailer that the fish is not supplied by pirated fisherman and the fish is harvested at the corrected levels to provide sustainability. Tuna and other species also must meet these criteria. Inboden's fresh oyster is from certified beds, along with our Prince Edward Island mussels.
More to come soon!
