Comments on: On Not Being Like Door-to-Door Meat Salesmen

By: Sherry

Sherry — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:45:43 +0000

How much do these guys actually make? What’s their “bottom dollar” on a box of steak?

By: Rafael

Rafael — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:51:25 +0000

I took my kids to the local market to get some Ice Cream, When this asmall refrigarated truck pull up and was knocking at a door with a BOX,The driver came to me pitch me that he had this extra meat and was selling at a discounted price. He showed me a brochur and the price of what I call a case of steaks for $369.00 He gave me a price of $150.00 and I thought it was a pretty good deal.I just got home and started to google the company and finding out that these guys dont look to be so honestly.I just finished putting the meats away in my freezer, I dont know how I am going to explain to my wife that I just bought $150.. of meat from a guy selling out of his truck…

By: Steven

Steven — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:35:32 +0000

These guys were at my mother in law’s house two weeks ago.
I do think that it is important to help people see the true cost of their food, this should help gain people’s trust.

By: Lance

Lance — Sun, 17 May 2009 18:15:18 +0000

Good post and a good exhortation… however, I don’t think these guys are going to sully the reputations of good small local producers. Connected-ness to our communities is a key for us. These guys pop in out of the blue and expect immediate trust, using the cheap price offer. I guess they are making sales… but not to the customers we want… Aren’t we looking for a different customer?

We need to keep encouraging folks to ask these kind of questions and other questions as well…what is the real huckstery-issue? Is it the pricing sleight-of-hand or is it also the antibiotic and hormone tainted meats grown industrially by corporate giants that destroy towns environmentally and economically? Maybe we’ll even see that Wal-mart and even smaller grocery stores aren’t that much different than these guys really… all pushing Excel, Farmland, Tyson, Swift, etc…. a more polished and sophisticated huckstery, I guess. I think we’ve all gotten use to the REAL hucksters, however, and it doesn’t trigger the same response.

We as a people need to get more concerned about the inside of the cup (ie. what’s in the food) instead of making the outward (price, appearance, perceived convenience) look good. Our customers understand this… and see these guys, even Wal-mart and the others, in a totally different light than the small local conscientious producer/marketer.

Ha! Sorry for the preaching… you got me going this morning, man!

By: Yeoman

Yeoman — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:06:01 +0000

Isn’t it so very odd that tying the beef to the chain restaurants would seem like a good idea to some vendor? As if “mass produced” would equate with “high quality”.

What a sad state of affairs.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:47:04 +0000

I agree – on the one hand, these guys were presenting themselves as a small, local business, but on the other, they were playing up the fact that their beef was sold at chain restaurants. I was sad that the sales pitch on the quality of the beef was tied to the implied endorsement of two big chains, and that was a major turn-off to me as well.

Yeoman, you raise a good point – these kinds of experiences can sully the reputation of any small seller, making it all the more important to be very transparent about pricing, quality, “localness”, etc. I think we run the risk of being lumped in if we are confusing about any of those things.

By: Yeoman

Yeoman — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:13:23 +0000

One thing that would serve us well to remember is that small, back of the truck, doesn’t necessarily equate with local.

These sort of guys sort of sound to me like the same sort of folks who are selling stereo equipment in the parking lot. Yes, some of them, maybe most of them, are honest. But others, well, perhaps not so much. Here it sounds like they tried to sell a story.

Heck, the Appelbees and Chillis reference alone would cause me to close the door. I don’t know where chain restaurants get their beef, but it sure ain’t from the local rancher, at least here. Indeed, there’s only a couple local restaurants that I know of that ever sold local beef, and neither of them still do.

Anyhow, I suspect these folks don’t help our reputations any. Some are no doubt quite honest, maybe most, but this isn’t how we’d want to present ourselves.

By: Devin Rose

Devin Rose — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:26:45 +0000

I have had the same experience where two young guys driving a small refrigerated truck tell me how they have this extra meat, same pitch as you received, and I immediately distrusted them.

Perhaps they are honest guys, but it doesn’t seem that way. I didn’t know who they were, so I don’t know what their farm is like, what they feed their cows, how they medicate their cows, etc. We have been buying from a local farmer (husband and wife) who other friends referred to us and we pay by the pound for a 1/4 or 1/2 cow, which, as you pointed out, helps us do a more apples-to-apples comparison with how much we are paying versus if we bought at the store.