[00:00:00.000] Ground beef is the most purchased
[00:00:01.640] protein in Canada. It is in your
[00:00:03.520] spaghetti, your burgers, your tacos,
[00:00:06.200] your kids' favorite weeknight meal. You
[00:00:08.280] have bought it a hundred times without
[00:00:09.720] thinking twice. But when we tested 11 of
[00:00:12.320] the biggest grocery chains selling
[00:00:13.840] ground beef to Canadian families right
[00:00:15.480] now, most of them failed. Not on taste,
[00:00:18.440] not on price, on what is actually inside
[00:00:21.040] the package.
[00:00:23.160] What we found behind the label, behind
[00:00:25.000] the color, and behind the lean to fat
[00:00:27.160] ratios printed in big friendly numbers
[00:00:29.080] on the front should make you stop and
[00:00:31.000] put the package back.
[00:00:33.120] The setup, why we did this test, let me
[00:00:36.360] tell you what started this.
[00:00:38.120] A few months ago, a viewer sent me a
[00:00:40.080] message.
[00:00:41.240] She said she had been buying the same
[00:00:43.000] brand of medium ground beef from the
[00:00:45.120] same store for years. Same package, same
[00:00:49.360] label, same price, give or take.
[00:00:53.040] But something changed. The pan was
[00:00:55.560] filling up with liquid every time she
[00:00:57.080] cooked it, more than she remembered. The
[00:00:59.920] beef was shrinking down to almost
[00:01:01.760] nothing.
[00:01:03.280] She thought she was imagining it. She
[00:01:05.360] was not.
[00:01:06.600] We started pulling data, and what we
[00:01:09.160] found is that ground beef in Canada is
[00:01:11.200] sitting inside one of the loosest
[00:01:13.080] labeling frameworks of any food product
[00:01:15.560] on the shelf. While you have been
[00:01:17.880] watching egg prices and bread prices and
[00:01:20.240] gas prices, ground beef has been running
[00:01:23.080] its own quiet operation.
[00:01:25.560] Prices have gone up. Package sizes have
[00:01:28.680] quietly come down.
[00:01:30.720] And what is inside those packages, the
[00:01:33.480] actual composition of the meat you are
[00:01:36.200] feeding your family,
[00:01:38.040] has drifted in ways the label does not
[00:01:41.120] have to tell you about.
[00:01:43.320] The average Canadian household spends
[00:01:45.440] somewhere between $400 and $600 a year
[00:01:49.000] on ground beef alone.
[00:01:51.480] That is not a rounding error.
[00:01:54.000] That is a grocery budget line that
[00:01:56.440] deserves the same scrutiny we give to
[00:01:59.800] anything else we spend that kind of
[00:02:01.440] money on. So, we built a test.
[00:02:05.080] 11 stores, one mission.
[00:02:08.640] Figure out who is actually giving you
[00:02:10.520] what they say they are
[00:02:12.520] and who is quietly betting you will
[00:02:14.640] never notice the difference.
[00:02:17.400] And I will tell you right now before we
[00:02:20.000] get into the results,
[00:02:22.120] some of what we found made me genuinely
[00:02:24.480] angry.
[00:02:26.280] Not surprised because nothing surprises
[00:02:28.720] me anymore,
[00:02:30.320] but angry.
[00:02:32.240] There is a difference.
[00:02:35.280] How ground beef is actually made and why
[00:02:37.720] that is a problem.
[00:02:40.000] Before we get to the rankings, you need
[00:02:41.680] to understand what ground beef actually
[00:02:43.840] is
[00:02:44.880] because most people are working with a
[00:02:46.280] mental image that stopped being accurate
[00:02:49.040] sometime around 1985.
[00:02:51.360] Here's what you picture.
[00:02:53.000] A butcher,
[00:02:54.560] a counter,
[00:02:56.120] some cuts of beef going into a grinder,
[00:02:58.400] clean, [music] simple,
[00:03:00.239] accountable.
[00:03:01.920] Here's what actually happens at
[00:03:03.239] industrial scale.
[00:03:05.239] Large processing facilities source what
[00:03:07.120] the industry calls trim.
[00:03:09.640] Trim is exactly what it sounds like. It
[00:03:11.200] is the material left over after prime
[00:03:13.239] cuts are removed from the carcass.
[00:03:15.840] Scraps from the chuck, the round, the
[00:03:17.920] brisket, the plate.
[00:03:20.040] Some of that trim is decent quality, a
[00:03:21.959] lot of it is not. It comes from multiple
[00:03:24.880] animals, often sourced from multiple
[00:03:27.239] provinces or multiple countries,
[00:03:29.680] combined into a single batch,
[00:03:31.920] and ground into the uniform pink product
[00:03:35.040] sitting under the plastic wrap at your
[00:03:37.200] grocery store.
[00:03:39.040] That is what you are looking at.
[00:03:41.200] A blend of scraps from animals you will
[00:03:43.000] never be able to trace,
[00:03:45.000] processed in a facility you will never
[00:03:46.720] visit, packaged to look like something
[00:03:49.560] simpler than it is.
[00:03:52.040] Now, here is where it gets worse.
[00:03:54.960] In Canada, ground beef fat content is
[00:03:57.520] regulated by the CFIA.
[00:04:00.440] Extra lean must be under 10% fat,
[00:04:03.240] lean under 17,
[00:04:05.160] medium under 23,
[00:04:07.120] regular up to 30.
[00:04:08.959] Sounds like a real system.
[00:04:10.840] Here's the problem.
[00:04:12.360] Compliance testing does not happen at
[00:04:13.959] the retail level on every batch. It
[00:04:15.760] happens at the processing level on
[00:04:17.760] samples periodically.
[00:04:20.120] The package in your fridge right now has
[00:04:21.560] never been individually tested. You are
[00:04:23.919] trusting an averaging system applied to
[00:04:26.000] an industrial process. Those are two
[00:04:28.160] very different things.
[00:04:30.560] Then there is the water issue. Ground
[00:04:33.000] beef naturally releases some moisture
[00:04:35.360] when cooked. That is normal.
[00:04:37.919] What is not normal is the volume some
[00:04:40.480] industrial products release because
[00:04:42.919] certain processing operations add water
[00:04:45.720] during grinding to improve texture and
[00:04:48.640] increase yield.
[00:04:50.280] This is completely legal. There is no
[00:04:52.320] labeling requirement to disclose it
[00:04:54.400] below a certain threshold.
[00:04:56.640] That liquid filling your pan is not all
[00:04:58.720] rendered fat. Some of it is water you
[00:05:01.240] paid beef prices for.
[00:05:03.680] I want you to think about that the next
[00:05:05.720] time you drain the pan.
[00:05:08.280] The color situation is its own problem.
[00:05:11.400] Fresh ground beef is naturally a deep
[00:05:13.640] purplish red.
[00:05:15.280] It turns bright red when exposed to
[00:05:17.320] oxygen.
[00:05:18.600] Retailers know this. Some use modified
[00:05:21.400] atmosphere packaging pumping specific
[00:05:23.800] gases into the sealed tray to keep the
[00:05:25.800] beef looking vivid long past the point
[00:05:28.040] where it would naturally oxidize. The
[00:05:30.320] beef looks fresh, it may not be.
[00:05:33.280] The color on the surface of that package
[00:05:35.160] is managed. It is not information.
[00:05:39.520] And the product of Canada label does not
[00:05:42.080] mean what you think it means. But we
[00:05:44.640] will get to that later.
[00:05:46.600] Right now, let's get to the stores.
[00:05:50.720] What we tested and how 11 stores, here's
[00:05:53.840] the list. Costco, Walmart, Loblaws,
[00:05:56.960] Sobeys, No Frills, Food Basics, Metro,
[00:06:00.440] FreshCo, Safeway, T&T Supermarket, and a
[00:06:04.320] regional independent butcher shop we
[00:06:06.120] will call the control.
[00:06:08.120] For each store, we purchased the medium
[00:06:09.920] ground beef, which is the most commonly
[00:06:12.360] purchased fat category in Canada,
[00:06:15.040] in the largest standard package
[00:06:16.440] available.
[00:06:17.640] We also purchased lean ground beef from
[00:06:19.600] each store
[00:06:20.559] >> [music]
[00:06:20.800] >> where it was available under a store
[00:06:22.480] brand or private label.
[00:06:24.880] We ran four tests on every sample.
[00:06:27.800] Test one, the cook down weight test.
[00:06:30.600] We weighed every package before cooking.
[00:06:33.160] We cooked each sample identically, same
[00:06:35.880] pan, same heat, same time, same portion
[00:06:39.320] size.
[00:06:40.560] We weighed the cooked result.
[00:06:42.560] The difference between the raw weight
[00:06:44.400] and the cooked weight
[00:06:46.240] tells you how much of what you paid for
[00:06:48.000] actually ended up as food. Test two, the
[00:06:51.360] render test.
[00:06:53.240] We collected and measured the liquid
[00:06:54.720] released during cooking in a clear
[00:06:56.360] container. We let it separate.
[00:06:58.840] Fat floats,
[00:06:59.859] >> [music]
[00:07:00.000] >> water sinks.
[00:07:01.600] The ratio of fat to water in that render
[00:07:03.440] tells you a lot about how the beef was
[00:07:04.960] processed and whether water was added
[00:07:06.720] before packaging.
[00:07:08.320] Test three, the color and oxidation
[00:07:10.320] check.
[00:07:11.560] We opened each package and photographed
[00:07:13.520] the interior color, not the surface.
[00:07:16.200] Surface color is managed. Interior color
[00:07:18.600] is closer to reality. Test four, the
[00:07:21.320] label accuracy cross reference. We sent
[00:07:23.520] samples from six of the 11 stores to an
[00:07:25.600] independent food testing laboratory for
[00:07:28.000] basic nutritional composition analysis,
[00:07:31.040] and compared those results to what the
[00:07:32.520] label claimed. I want to be clear about
[00:07:34.400] something.
[00:07:35.480] We are not a government agency.
[00:07:37.880] We are not the Canadian Food Inspection
[00:07:39.840] Agency. This is not a peer-reviewed
[00:07:42.200] study,
[00:07:43.320] but the methodology is consistent, the
[00:07:45.680] sample sizes are real, and the lab
[00:07:47.720] results are real.
[00:07:49.280] What we found is directionally accurate,
[00:07:51.400] and I stand behind every word of it. All
[00:07:53.320] right, let's get into it.
[00:07:56.000] The failures, stores that didn't make
[00:07:58.080] the grade.
[00:07:59.640] Four stores in our test fell into what
[00:08:01.400] I'm calling the failure category.
[00:08:03.960] These are the stores where the gap
[00:08:05.560] between what the label says
[00:08:07.920] and what we actually found was
[00:08:09.480] significant enough that I would not feel
[00:08:11.160] comfortable buying ground beef there
[00:08:13.120] without knowing what I now know.
[00:08:16.240] Food Basics. Let's start here because
[00:08:18.720] this one was the worst result in the
[00:08:20.240] entire test,
[00:08:21.960] and I want you to understand what worst
[00:08:23.919] actually means in this context.
[00:08:26.800] Food Basics is Metro's discount banner.
[00:08:29.480] It is where a lot of lower-income
[00:08:30.960] Canadian families shop because they have
[00:08:33.159] to. The prices are lower, the quality,
[00:08:37.039] based on our test, is dramatically lower
[00:08:40.120] in ways the price difference does not
[00:08:42.080] justify.
[00:08:43.919] The medium ground beef we purchased
[00:08:45.839] showed the highest render volume of any
[00:08:47.880] store in the test.
[00:08:50.000] When we cooked a standard 250-g portion
[00:08:53.400] and collected the liquid, we measured
[00:08:55.600] over 90 ml of combined fat and water.
[00:08:59.480] That is nearly a third of a cup of
[00:09:01.120] liquid coming out of a quarter kilogram
[00:09:03.600] of beef.
[00:09:04.920] And when we let that liquid separate,
[00:09:07.280] the ratio was not predominantly fat,
[00:09:09.320] which you would expect from medium
[00:09:11.520] ground beef at up to 23% fat content.
[00:09:14.791] >> [music]
[00:09:14.960] >> It was predominantly water.
[00:09:17.080] The lab results from the Food Basics
[00:09:18.680] sample came back showing protein levels
[00:09:21.160] meaningfully below what the label
[00:09:22.680] implied for medium ground beef.
[00:09:25.080] Not catastrophically below, but below.
[00:09:28.360] When you are already buying the cheapest
[00:09:29.760] option because your grocery budget is
[00:09:31.520] tight, getting less actual nutrition per
[00:09:34.000] dollar than the label implies is not a
[00:09:35.880] rounding error. It is a problem. The
[00:09:38.600] packaging also showed signs of extended
[00:09:40.480] modified atmosphere treatment.
[00:09:43.000] The interior color on our sample was
[00:09:44.680] significantly brighter than the control
[00:09:46.400] sample of the same age, which suggests
[00:09:48.720] the beef had been packaged to look
[00:09:50.160] fresher than it was.
[00:09:51.840] Food Basics markets itself as
[00:09:53.280] affordable.
[00:09:54.760] What our test suggests is that
[00:09:56.120] affordable has been achieved in part by
[00:09:57.920] giving you less of what you are paying
[00:09:59.960] for. No Frills.
[00:10:02.160] No Frills is Loblaws discount banner.
[00:10:04.640] Same structure as Food Basics.
[00:10:06.920] Cut the price at the banner level, cut
[00:10:08.840] the product quality at the sourcing
[00:10:10.800] level, and count on the customer not
[00:10:12.600] having a laboratory in their kitchen,
[00:10:14.400] which to be fair is a reasonable bet.
[00:10:17.000] Until now.
[00:10:19.200] Our No Frills sample performed second
[00:10:21.080] worst in the cook down test. We lost 38%
[00:10:24.400] of the raw weight through cooking
[00:10:26.440] compared to an average of 26%
[00:10:29.000] across all 11 stores. 38%.
[00:10:32.680] If you buy a 500 g package of No Frills
[00:10:35.400] medium ground beef,
[00:10:37.040] you are cooking down to roughly 310 g of
[00:10:39.839] actual food. You are paying for nearly
[00:10:42.040] 200 g of water and fat that ends up in
[00:10:44.400] the pan, not on the plate.
[00:10:46.800] The country of origin situation at No
[00:10:48.560] Frills is also worth flagging. The
[00:10:50.720] packaging [music] says product of
[00:10:52.839] Canada.
[00:10:54.400] When we dug into the supply chain
[00:10:55.880] documentation available through CFIA
[00:10:58.400] public records and supplier disclosures,
[00:11:01.640] the trim sourcing for this private label
[00:11:03.400] product is not exclusively Canadian
[00:11:05.400] cattle.
[00:11:06.440] It meets the legal threshold for the
[00:11:08.000] product of Canada claim, but the legal
[00:11:10.480] threshold and what most Canadians think
[00:11:12.120] that label means are not the same thing.
[00:11:14.760] Walmart.
[00:11:16.160] I want to be careful here because
[00:11:17.400] Walmart's ground beef story is more
[00:11:19.000] complicated than Food Basics or No
[00:11:20.600] Frills,
[00:11:21.800] and more complicated does not mean
[00:11:23.200] better. Walmart sells ground beef under
[00:11:25.760] the Angus designation at a slight
[00:11:27.440] premium over their base product. Angus
[00:11:29.839] is one of the most abused marketing
[00:11:31.320] terms in the North American beef
[00:11:32.800] industry. To carry an Angus label in
[00:11:34.960] Canada, the beef must come from cattle
[00:11:37.280] with a certain percentage of Angus
[00:11:38.560] genetics. That is it. There is no
[00:11:40.400] quality standard attached. There is no
[00:11:42.200] grading requirement.
[00:11:44.000] An Angus animal raised in poor
[00:11:45.480] conditions on a substandard diet and
[00:11:48.000] processed through industrial trim
[00:11:49.520] operations is still technically Angus.
[00:11:52.280] The label implies premium.
[00:11:54.360] The standard behind the label is
[00:11:55.560] minimal.
[00:11:56.880] Our Walmart medium ground beef sample,
[00:11:59.040] the base product, not the Angus line,
[00:12:01.280] performed in the lower third of the test
[00:12:03.040] on cook down weight and in the bottom
[00:12:05.160] quarter on the render water ratio test.
[00:12:08.400] The lab results came back within label
[00:12:10.000] tolerance on fat content, which means
[00:12:12.560] Walmart is not technically
[00:12:13.840] misrepresenting the fat percentage.
[00:12:16.320] They are just giving you a product
[00:12:17.538] [music] that performs poorly in the pan
[00:12:20.040] and leans heavily on the word Angus to
[00:12:22.720] justify a price premium that the
[00:12:25.400] product's actual performance does not
[00:12:28.120] support.
[00:12:29.360] Also,
[00:12:30.640] and this is just a personal observation,
[00:12:33.240] the Walmart ground beef packaging is the
[00:12:36.040] most aggressively cheerful of any store
[00:12:39.080] we tested.
[00:12:40.680] Big red and white colors,
[00:12:42.800] bold font, farm imagery.
[00:12:46.440] The marketing budget and the sourcing
[00:12:48.560] budget appear to be inversely related.
[00:12:52.040] That is not unique to Walmart, but it is
[00:12:54.520] noticeable.
[00:12:56.240] Metro. Metro sits in an interesting
[00:12:58.880] position in the Canadian grocery
[00:13:01.240] landscape because they present
[00:13:02.480] themselves as a step above the discount
[00:13:04.600] banners while operating the discount
[00:13:06.600] banners.
[00:13:08.080] They are Loblaws with a slightly nicer
[00:13:09.880] floor layout.
[00:13:11.520] Our Metro sample was not as bad as Food
[00:13:13.640] Basics or No Frills, but it earned its
[00:13:16.240] place in the failure category for one
[00:13:18.320] specific reason.
[00:13:20.480] The lean ground beef we purchased from
[00:13:22.080] Metro, labeled as extra lean,
[00:13:25.280] came back from the lab above the
[00:13:26.960] extra-lean threshold on fat content. Not
[00:13:30.400] by a massive margin,
[00:13:32.320] but extra-lean in Canada means under 10%
[00:13:35.720] fat.
[00:13:36.840] Our sample tested above that threshold
[00:13:39.040] on compositional analysis. That is a
[00:13:41.600] labeling accuracy failure.
[00:13:44.040] It is exactly the kind of failure the
[00:13:46.760] CFIA's periodic testing is supposed to
[00:13:49.600] catch and clearly did not catch on this
[00:13:53.000] production run.
[00:13:54.480] If you are buying extra-lean ground beef
[00:13:56.680] because your doctor told you to reduce
[00:13:58.440] your saturated fat intake and the
[00:14:00.840] package you are buying is not actually
[00:14:02.640] extra-lean, that is not a minor
[00:14:05.200] inconvenience. That is a health
[00:14:07.280] information failure dressed up as a
[00:14:08.880] grocery purchase.
[00:14:11.560] The middle of the pack. Three stores
[00:14:13.880] landed in the middle.
[00:14:15.480] Not disasters,
[00:14:16.749] >> [music]
[00:14:16.960] >> not trustworthy enough to buy blindly.
[00:14:19.680] Understand what you are getting before
[00:14:21.280] you hand over the money. Sobeys. Sobeys
[00:14:24.520] is a genuinely confusing company to
[00:14:27.040] evaluate because the quality is
[00:14:28.560] inconsistent in ways that suggest a
[00:14:30.280] sourcing operation that is not tightly
[00:14:32.800] controlled.
[00:14:34.240] Our Sobeys sample performed near the
[00:14:36.000] middle of the pack on cook down weight,
[00:14:37.880] which is fine.
[00:14:39.320] The render test was acceptable.
[00:14:41.520] The color check was normal. Where Sobeys
[00:14:44.120] lost points is on transparency.
[00:14:47.440] Their private label ground beef
[00:14:49.000] packaging gives you very little
[00:14:50.480] information about where the beef comes
[00:14:52.120] from, what the trim sources are,
[00:14:55.160] or how the product is processed. For a
[00:14:57.720] chain that markets itself with imagery
[00:14:59.720] of Canadian farms and local producers,
[00:15:02.680] the opacity of the actual supply chain
[00:15:04.839] documentation is notable.
[00:15:07.160] Also, and I realize this sounds minor,
[00:15:10.520] the Sobeys package we bought had a best
[00:15:12.880] before date that was 4 days out from
[00:15:14.880] purchase.
[00:15:16.120] The interior color of the beef was
[00:15:17.880] already showing oxidation inconsistent
[00:15:20.200] with a product that fresh.
[00:15:22.120] Either the date was optimistic or the
[00:15:24.360] packaging seal had not held.
[00:15:26.720] Either way, the product we opened did
[00:15:28.960] not look like what the date on the
[00:15:30.760] package promised.
[00:15:34.280] Loblaws is Canada's largest grocery
[00:15:36.560] retailer.
[00:15:37.840] They own No Frills, they own Maxi, they
[00:15:40.040] own Real Canadian Superstore.
[00:15:42.480] They own Provigo.
[00:15:44.720] They own about 40% of your grocery
[00:15:46.840] options depending on where you live in
[00:15:49.320] this country.
[00:15:50.640] And I want to be honest about something.
[00:15:52.720] Loblaws does not want you thinking
[00:15:54.720] clearly
[00:15:56.080] about Loblaws. Their marketing is very
[00:15:59.640] very good. The Loblaws branded ground
[00:16:02.560] beef we tested performed better than
[00:16:04.760] their No Frills equivalent, which makes
[00:16:07.000] sense because the sourcing is
[00:16:08.360] differentiated between banners.
[00:16:10.880] The cook down was average.
[00:16:13.120] The render test was average.
[00:16:15.640] Lab results came back within label
[00:16:18.040] tolerance.
[00:16:19.920] Average.
[00:16:21.800] For the largest grocery company in
[00:16:23.240] Canada with the marketing budget of a
[00:16:25.240] mid-size nation,
[00:16:26.880] average is not a compliment.
[00:16:28.920] The PC brand, President's Choice, which
[00:16:31.520] is Loblaws premium private label,
[00:16:34.040] performed noticeably better than the
[00:16:35.600] standard Loblaws ground beef in cook
[00:16:37.560] down weight.
[00:16:38.800] If you are shopping at Loblaws, buy the
[00:16:40.960] PC branded beef, not the generic Loblaws
[00:16:43.839] label.
[00:16:45.000] That gap in performance from the same
[00:16:47.040] store tells you everything about how
[00:16:49.400] intentional the quality differentiation
[00:16:51.600] is between their product tiers.
[00:16:54.000] Freshco Freshco is Sobeys's discount
[00:16:56.480] banner and it performed better than I
[00:16:57.960] expected, which is the most damning
[00:16:59.800] thing I can say about the discount
[00:17:01.360] grocery tier in this country.
[00:17:03.320] It performed better than expected. The
[00:17:05.720] bar was underground. Cook down was in
[00:17:07.959] the middle third. Render test was
[00:17:09.800] acceptable. No lab flags. The packaging
[00:17:13.319] is basic. The store environment is no
[00:17:15.439] frills in the original sense of the
[00:17:16.839] word. and the ground beef appears to be
[00:17:19.400] what it says it is, not great, not
[00:17:21.800] impressive, but honest, which in this
[00:17:24.736] [music] test is worth noting.
[00:17:27.720] The stores that actually passed,
[00:17:30.080] three stores passed our test clearly
[00:17:32.040] enough that I would buy their ground
[00:17:33.400] beef without hesitation.
[00:17:35.360] Here they are.
[00:17:37.120] Number three,
[00:17:38.360] Safeway.
[00:17:40.040] I did not expect Safeway to land here
[00:17:42.000] and I want to give credit where it is
[00:17:43.280] due.
[00:17:44.400] Safeway is owned by Sobeys, which given
[00:17:46.920] the Sobeys result might seem like a
[00:17:48.400] contradiction, but Safeway operates with
[00:17:51.000] a slightly different sourcing structure
[00:17:52.920] in Western Canada,
[00:17:54.720] where a higher proportion of the beef
[00:17:56.320] supply chain is regional, meaning closer
[00:17:58.760] to actual Canadian cattle operations.
[00:18:01.800] Our Safeway sample had the third lowest
[00:18:03.680] cook down loss in the test.
[00:18:05.800] The render test showed a fat to water
[00:18:07.720] ratio that was consistent with properly
[00:18:09.640] labeled medium ground beef.
[00:18:12.080] No modified atmosphere anomalies on the
[00:18:14.000] color check. Lab results came back
[00:18:16.120] clean.
[00:18:17.320] Safeway is not the cheapest option,
[00:18:19.720] but it is an honest option and when we
[00:18:21.800] are talking about what you are feeding
[00:18:23.200] your family three or four nights a week,
[00:18:25.160] honest matters.
[00:18:27.640] Number two, Costco. Here's the thing
[00:18:30.560] about Costco that the grocery industry
[00:18:32.320] does not want to talk about. Costco's
[00:18:34.720] business model actually aligns with
[00:18:36.320] yours in a way that almost no other
[00:18:37.720] retailers does.
[00:18:39.440] Costco charges you a membership fee up
[00:18:41.920] front and then operates on a capped
[00:18:44.880] margin on everything they sell.
[00:18:47.760] Their markup on food products is
[00:18:49.760] structurally lower than any conventional
[00:18:51.880] grocery chain.
[00:18:53.560] They cannot make up for thin margins
[00:18:56.000] with product deception the way a
[00:18:57.680] conventional retailer can because their
[00:18:59.520] profit is already captured at the
[00:19:01.040] membership level.
[00:19:02.560] What that means in practice is that
[00:19:03.920] Costco has less financial incentive to
[00:19:06.000] source the cheapest possible trim
[00:19:08.160] and dress it up with packaging.
[00:19:10.120] They need the product to be good enough
[00:19:11.760] that you keep paying the membership fee.
[00:19:14.240] Our Costco ground beef, which is sold in
[00:19:16.480] 3-lb packages under their Kirkland
[00:19:18.320] Signature brand, had the second lowest
[00:19:20.920] cook down loss of any store in the test.
[00:19:23.600] The render test showed the cleanest fat
[00:19:25.720] to water ratio of any major chain,
[00:19:28.000] meaning minimal added water in the
[00:19:29.680] processing. Lab results came back above
[00:19:32.320] label accuracy on protein content, which
[00:19:35.480] means you are getting slightly more than
[00:19:36.960] what the label promises. That almost
[00:19:39.280] never happens.
[00:19:41.160] The only knock on Costco beef is the
[00:19:43.200] package size.
[00:19:45.240] 3 lb is the entry point. If you live
[00:19:48.000] alone or cook for one or two people, you
[00:19:50.360] are portioning and freezing, which is
[00:19:52.120] fine, but requires [music] a bit of
[00:19:53.920] planning.
[00:19:55.200] Freeze in portions before the beef gets
[00:19:57.000] to room temperature and refreeze within
[00:19:58.800] the day. Do not let it sit in the fridge
[00:20:01.040] for 4 days and then freeze it. That is
[00:20:03.040] how you end up with gray, flavorless
[00:20:05.200] beef that you convince yourself is fine.
[00:20:07.178] >> [music]
[00:20:07.440] >> It is not fine. You know it is not fine.
[00:20:10.840] Number one,
[00:20:12.520] the independent butcher. I know, you saw
[00:20:15.000] this coming.
[00:20:16.160] The independent butcher won, and I
[00:20:18.200] realize that saying the local butcher
[00:20:19.760] beats the big chains is about as
[00:20:21.160] surprising as saying the small mechanic
[00:20:22.880] shop beats the dealership service
[00:20:25.040] department.
[00:20:26.440] But the reason it wins matters, and I
[00:20:28.400] want to explain it. Our control sample
[00:20:30.760] came from a regional independent butcher
[00:20:32.720] shop with a single location.
[00:20:35.560] They grind in-house daily.
[00:20:38.600] They source from one or two regional
[00:20:40.240] suppliers they have worked with for
[00:20:41.640] years. They [music] know exactly what
[00:20:43.440] trim is going into their grind on any
[00:20:45.240] given day
[00:20:46.400] because they control the entire process
[00:20:48.600] from the supplier relationship to the
[00:20:50.320] grinder to the counter.
[00:20:52.480] Our butcher shop sample had the lowest
[00:20:55.000] cook down loss of any sample in the test
[00:20:58.440] by a significant margin.
[00:21:00.400] We lost 18% of raw weight through
[00:21:03.640] cooking. The next closest was Costco at
[00:21:06.680] 22%.
[00:21:08.480] The industry average across our 11
[00:21:10.000] stores was 28%.
[00:21:12.920] The worst, Food Basics, was 38% 18
[00:21:16.480] versus 38.
[00:21:18.640] That is the gap between a butcher who
[00:21:20.400] grinds what they say they are grinding
[00:21:22.840] and a discount chain optimizing for
[00:21:24.640] margin on every kilogram. The butcher
[00:21:27.360] was also the most expensive per 100 g of
[00:21:30.520] the 11 options.
[00:21:32.160] But here is the math that should follow
[00:21:33.720] you out of this video.
[00:21:35.560] If you are losing 38% of your Food
[00:21:37.960] Basics beef to cook down and only 18% of
[00:21:41.760] your butcher beef, and the butcher costs
[00:21:44.280] 20% more per gram [music] raw,
[00:21:46.600] you are actually getting more food per
[00:21:48.120] dollar from the butcher once you account
[00:21:50.000] for what survives cooking.
[00:21:51.840] You are not paying more.
[00:21:53.920] You are paying less per gram of actual
[00:21:56.160] food on your plate.
[00:21:58.280] The cheap beef is the expensive beef.
[00:22:01.400] Write that down.
[00:22:02.800] The cheap beef is the expensive beef.
[00:22:05.560] The label deception, what Canadian law
[00:22:08.800] actually allows. This is the chapter
[00:22:11.480] that is going to make you want to write
[00:22:12.680] a letter to your member of parliament. I
[00:22:14.640] genuinely encourage that impulse. The
[00:22:17.160] Canadian Food Inspection Agency
[00:22:19.080] regulates meat labeling in this country.
[00:22:21.520] On paper, the framework sounds serious.
[00:22:24.280] Fat content tolerances, compositional
[00:22:27.320] standards,
[00:22:28.640] country of origin rules.
[00:22:30.720] It sounds like a system built to protect
[00:22:32.800] you. Here is what it actually does.
[00:22:35.640] The fat content tolerance allows a
[00:22:37.920] package labeled 17% fat to legally test
[00:22:41.880] it up to 20% before any regulatory
[00:22:44.200] action is triggered.
[00:22:45.840] You bought medium ground beef, you got
[00:22:47.880] something closer to regular. Both are
[00:22:49.800] completely legal. The added water
[00:22:51.520] situation is even more permissive. Water
[00:22:54.040] added during grinding does not have to
[00:22:55.640] be declared on the label below a
[00:22:57.000] threshold that most processors stay
[00:22:58.800] carefully under. There is no requirement
[00:23:00.960] to tell you how much of what you paid
[00:23:02.480] for will render off in the pan. [music]
[00:23:04.560] The CFIA has no labeling requirement for
[00:23:07.040] cook down performance whatsoever.
[00:23:09.280] Country of origin is the one that
[00:23:10.600] bothers me most because it is the one
[00:23:12.520] Canadians [music] care most about and
[00:23:14.040] understand least accurately. For a
[00:23:15.960] product to carry the product of Canada
[00:23:17.760] label, the last substantial
[00:23:19.320] transformation must have occurred in
[00:23:20.720] Canada. For ground beef, grinding
[00:23:23.080] counts.
[00:23:24.520] Beef trim imported from the United
[00:23:26.120] States, Australia, or Brazil, ground at
[00:23:28.960] a Canadian facility is legally product
[00:23:31.480] of Canada. That is not a loophole.
[00:23:34.400] That is the rule.
[00:23:36.240] The grocery lobby has blocked source
[00:23:38.040] level origin labeling for over a decade.
[00:23:40.880] The political will exists in the public.
[00:23:43.000] It does not exist where the money is.
[00:23:45.200] And that is just how regulatory capture
[00:23:47.000] works at a very boring, very Canadian,
[00:23:50.160] very spreadsheet level scale.
[00:23:52.960] The buying rule. I promised you one
[00:23:57.280] Here it is and it has three parts
[00:23:59.600] because I cannot help myself. Part one.
[00:24:02.880] Check the cook down. You cannot test
[00:24:05.440] cook down before you buy, but you can
[00:24:08.000] look at the render after you cook.
[00:24:10.840] Next time you brown ground beef, collect
[00:24:13.960] the liquid in a clear glass or measuring
[00:24:16.560] cup. Let it sit for 2 minutes. The fat
[00:24:20.360] will float to the top.
[00:24:22.400] The water will sit below it.
[00:24:24.760] If the bottom layer, the water layer is
[00:24:27.400] thicker than a centimeter, you have a
[00:24:29.800] product with significant added water.
[00:24:33.440] Remember what you bought. Do not buy it
[00:24:36.120] again.
[00:24:37.600] Part two.
[00:24:39.000] Read the actual fat percentage, not the
[00:24:41.760] marketing word. Extra lean, lean,
[00:24:45.120] medium, regular, those words are
[00:24:47.520] regulated. The imagery around them is
[00:24:50.040] not. A package of ground beef with a
[00:24:53.200] picture of a sun-drenched Alberta ranch
[00:24:55.480] on the front and the word "medium"
[00:24:58.360] printed in small type below it is medium
[00:25:01.120] ground beef
[00:25:02.600] from an unknown collection of trim
[00:25:04.440] sources.
[00:25:05.880] Ignore the ranch, read the number.
[00:25:09.120] Then decide if that fat percentage is
[00:25:11.880] what you actually want.
[00:25:14.520] Part three.
[00:25:16.280] Buy from a source that controls the
[00:25:18.320] grind.
[00:25:19.600] Ask your grocery store meat counter when
[00:25:21.720] they grind.
[00:25:23.120] If the answer is, "We receive it
[00:25:25.080] pre-ground from the supplier," you are
[00:25:27.480] buying a product processed somewhere
[00:25:30.760] packaged somewhere else,
[00:25:32.800] and shipped with a best before date
[00:25:35.000] calibrated to a shipping schedule,
[00:25:37.920] not to freshness.
[00:25:39.760] Independent butchers grind on site.
[00:25:42.640] Some full-service grocery counters still
[00:25:44.840] do it. Ask.
[00:25:46.800] That one question tells you more about
[00:25:48.840] the product than anything printed on the
[00:25:50.920] label.
[00:25:52.080] Here is the home test that costs you
[00:25:54.360] nothing.
[00:25:56.000] Cook a standard portion of your usual
[00:25:57.920] ground beef and weigh it before and
[00:25:59.720] after.
[00:26:01.000] Losing more than 30% of raw weight means
[00:26:04.120] you are in the failure zone.
[00:26:06.320] You now have data. Use it.
[00:26:09.320] The broader rule is this: The package is
[00:26:11.520] a marketing decision. What is inside is
[00:26:14.160] a sourcing decision.
[00:26:16.200] Those two decisions are made by
[00:26:17.760] different people with completely
[00:26:19.360] different incentives.
[00:26:21.320] Your job is not to trust the label. Your
[00:26:23.280] job is to understand what the label is
[00:26:25.240] not required to tell you. Canada has
[00:26:27.280] world-class cattle.
[00:26:29.240] The problem is the industrial processing
[00:26:31.320] system standing between that rancher and
[00:26:33.520] your pan,
[00:26:34.800] extracting margin at every step.
[00:26:37.920] Find the butcher. Do the math.
[00:26:41.160] The cheap beef is the expensive beef.
[00:26:44.040] Here's where I land after spending 2
[00:26:45.760] months on this test. I buy ground beef
[00:26:48.000] from a butcher now.
[00:26:49.720] Not every week because I am human, and
[00:26:52.040] sometimes it is 9:00 on a Tuesday and
[00:26:54.760] the butcher is closed and I am standing
[00:26:57.520] in the Costco aisle making peace with my
[00:26:59.720] life choices.
[00:27:01.800] But when I plan ahead, which I do about
[00:27:04.080] 60% of the time, I buy from a butcher.
[00:27:07.800] The price difference over a month is
[00:27:09.720] smaller than what I spend on coffee that
[00:27:12.480] I also do not need,
[00:27:14.840] but that is a separate video and a
[00:27:17.080] separate reckoning.
[00:27:18.880] The 11 stores we tested are not equally
[00:27:21.760] bad.
[00:27:22.920] Some of them are trying.
[00:27:25.400] Costco is genuinely trying,
[00:27:28.160] which is a strange sentence to write
[00:27:30.000] about one of the largest retailers on
[00:27:32.320] Earth, but here we are.
[00:27:34.680] The independent butcher is obviously
[00:27:36.440] trying.
[00:27:38.480] Safeway surprised me.
[00:27:41.360] The discount banners, Food Basics, No
[00:27:44.040] Frills, and to a lesser extent Walmart
[00:27:47.120] are operating a quiet arbitrage on the
[00:27:49.520] fact that most Canadians do not know the
[00:27:51.800] rules of the game they are playing. Now
[00:27:54.000] you know the rules.
[00:27:55.920] Drop a comment right now. Tell me where
[00:27:58.200] you buy your ground beef and how long
[00:27:59.920] you have been buying it there.
[00:28:01.800] I want to know if what we found matches
[00:28:04.000] what you have experienced in the pan.
[00:28:06.760] The data from 100 kitchens is better
[00:28:09.800] than the data from one test kitchen
[00:28:12.480] and I read every single comment even
[00:28:15.200] when I do not respond to them,
[00:28:17.200] especially the ones that are angry.
[00:28:19.600] Those are usually the most useful.
[00:28:21.960] Next video we are going inside the
[00:28:23.960] Canadian chicken supply chain and if you
[00:28:26.920] think ground beef has a labeling
[00:28:28.600] problem, I need you to sit down before
[00:28:30.760] that one plays.
[00:28:32.600] The water injection practices in
[00:28:34.520] commercial chicken processing in this
[00:28:36.440] country
[00:28:37.720] are going to make the ground beef
[00:28:39.120] situation look like a minor
[00:28:40.920] administrative irregularity.
[00:28:43.440] Subscribe so you catch that one when it
[00:28:45.560] drops and remember the cheap beef is the
[00:28:49.080] expensive beef. I will see you in the
[00:28:51.040] next one.