Much to my surprise, amazing beef can be found in Hawaii. Excellent beef is almost the only beef available here, believe it or not. I was reading a book about Hawaii and found out that all the beef is either raised locally or imported from Canada via boat. And from what I read it sounds like they are very particular about what kind of beef gets sent here since we have such a sensitive echo system. Just like everything else in Hawaii, it’s fairly expensive. Grass fed, free range local beef sales for about $20.00 per pound for the choice cuts and just under $10.00 per pound for ground beef. The Canadian beef is slightly more affordable at about $11.00 per pound for choice cuts. Now I know what a lot of you are thinking, “what does discount Mike do to save money on beef because he’s to tight to pay those prices”. Well theirs a simple solution, because your absolutely correct, I love beef but that’s way to expensive for our tight budget and my tight ass.
Just like on the mainland, their are several large grocery retailers here in the Hilo area. Safeway is by far the best place to find great deals or insanely expensive ones if your not paying attention. Their bakery is to die for, it takes first place for Hilo Bakeries. The main benefit to having such a large retailer here locally is they can’t sale everything they ship in, so just like Paul’s Market in Idaho or your local retailer wherever you maybe, they have a discount meat bin where everything goes that’s close to the “sale by date”. Safeway is the only big box store that we’ve found discounted meat at. The first day it’s in the “discount meat bin” it is 30% of the marked price, if it sits their for two days they mark it down to 50% off, which puts it right in our price range. I think just about everyone and their dog knows about the discount meat bin so if you want a shot at buying this meat you better get to the store before 11 a.m. on a week day. I asked last time I was their and one of the employees told me they mark down meat and put it in the bin every day, so if you can beat people to the market before they get off work, you can save some money and enjoy some great beef at a reasonable price.