Offal - why are less-desirable cuts of meat more expensive?

Acathater · 2026-08-28T13:51:05+0100

There was a tripeworks in the town centre in Padiham, Lancashire. It closed around 1997, but the reek was still there ten years later. Awful

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Trackman said:
I asked him how did he make money, firstly he didnt pay for the bones/bit of animals and at the end of the day we would throw them in skip and someone would pick them up, this would be used for fuel, plastics and I am sure he said perfumes.

The bones and bits would be rendered down using heat and steam to produce fat, gelatin and glycerine.
The solid remains would be powdered and sold as bonemeal or blood & bone as fertiliser or animal feed supplements

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Sun Chariot · 2026-08-28T15:14:36+0100

Acathater said:
The bones and bits would be rendered down using heat and steam to produce fat, gelatin and glycerine.
The solid remains would be powdered and sold as bonemeal or blood & bone as fertiliser or animal feed supplements

I am sure one such works was near the Tate & Lyle plant at Silvertown (near Canning Town, London's Royal Docks).
On a good day, the smell of refining sugar wafted along to the Thames Flood Barrier.
On a not-good day, the stench of carcasses being rendered-down, hung in the same air...

philthetube · 2026-08-28T15:57:34+0100

We had creative cooks at my school, one of the dishes served was braised ox heart.

Banned since BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy)

styles · 2026-08-28T16:21:56+0100

philthetube said:
We had creative cooks at my school, one of the dishes served was braised ox heart.

Banned since BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy)

Not sure about cooking them, but our biology teacher did put in a large order of pigs hearts so we could do some practical anatomy!

There was some fainting and additional toilet trips that lesson. See also: the video where we watched injections happening.

johnnychips · 2026-08-28T21:44:35+0100

Merle Haggard said:
Whatever happened to the UCP shops?
.

My Auntie Elsie always said, ‘If UCP on tripe, don’t eat it.’

Mcr Warrior · 2026-08-28T21:48:00+0100

Merle Haggard said:
Whatever happened to the UCP shops?

Closed maybe 50+ years ago? Essentially a product of their time.

cin88 · 2026-08-28T22:24:02+0100

I'm quite partial to heart, both lamb and ox, apart from around mid way through a 6 week period one mid 00s summer where my mother got a job lot of ox hearts for a very good price and it became Sunday dinner every week. We were all sick of it for a while after that. I find that it makes a fantastic sandwich meat. I recently lamented to my parents that i'd not had roasted heart for years and got a barrage of complaining about the price for my trouble :lol:

I used to quite like pigs kidneys as a child but went off them after unknowingly copping a bad one that made me quite ill on the same evening. I can tolerate it in steak & kidney pie (on account of it being my favourite) but can't stomach them otherwise.

The Delia effect seems to apply to most cuts of meat and fish products, in the sense that as soon as a celebrity chef gets their hands on it on the television then you've had it as the price is going to fly up in response to a sudden (however short lived) increase in demand.

Merle Haggard · 2026-08-28T22:37:29+0100

Mcr Warrior said:
Closed maybe 50+ years ago? Essentially a product of their time.

What I thought was interesting was that, from the outside, they looked very stylish and modern. The fascia was shiny self coloured material in paste shades with stainless steel trim. No hint of what they sold - no window display as far as I can recall, just the three initial letters in stainless steel. Could have been bookmakers!

But you're right - the last one I can remember seeing was in Wigan in 1971, somewhere between North Western. and the bus stands (??? bus station).

Time flies when you're old...

Spamcan81 · 2026-08-28T23:49:32+0100

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, mum bought a lot of offal because it was cheap. Liver, kidneys, tongue and heart. Still have a taste for it if you can find it. Local butcher does have liver and kidneys from time to time and can get heart sometimes. Local Morrisons usually has tongue on its deli counter.

GusB · 2026-08-28T23:52:59+0100

cin88 said:
I used to quite like pigs kidneys as a child but went off them after unknowingly copping a bad one that made me quite ill on the same evening. I can tolerate it in steak & kidney pie (on account of it being my favourite) but can't stomach them otherwise.

I haven't seen kidney in the shops for quite a while, but then again I don't often look for it. One day I saw a big pack of braising steak that was reduced to clear and though that it'd be nice to get some kidney to go with it but I couldn't find any. That was in Aldi, and kidney doesn't seem to be listed on its website.

It would seem that Asda and Tesco stock it, though, so a trip to the latter may be in order soon. I'm very partial to a steak and kidney pie!

I enjoy liver too, and fortunately it still seems to be selling at a fairly reasonable price while the cost of everything else in the meat section seems to have rocketed.

_toommm_ · 2026-08-29T07:50:03+0100

najaB said:
I love oxtail - such a fantastic rich stew - and tongue and heart are super tender meats.

My other half and I talk about this quite regularly. She's Bajan/Jamaican, and we love Oxtail Stew, but it's become so expensive with it becoming gentrified.

mikeg · 2026-08-29T10:37:49+0100

Uk02048 said:
Offal, at least (you'd hope anyway) the stuff destined for direct human consumption, has a shorter shelf life than other animal protein. So likely incremental higher supply chain costs for that reason too - they need to get it and pack/ship it asap / less schedule flex.

This is a large part of it : offal needs to maintain a core temperature of no more than 3c according to my food hygiene training whilst others can be stored in environs of 5c and the core temperature go up to 8. Add to that the short shelf life and cost of wastage (for each unit of stock destroyed about 5 or more sales have to be made to recoup the cost) and I’m sure you can see why the economics aren’t favourable.
Buying in bulk is likely a different story but it’s one of those things that doesn’t work very well for sales at retail volumes, especially since it’s a more niche product and volumes are likely to be low and unpredictable.

Words are my own, not those of my employer.

Sun Chariot · 2026-08-29T10:38:36+0100

_toommm_ said:
My other half and I talk about this quite regularly. She's Bajan/Jamaican, and we love Oxtail Stew, but it's become so expensive with it becoming gentrified.

I'm an erstwhile fan of oxtail stock, oxtail soup, ox-tongue. In the 1970s + 1980s, my parents often served those up, using proper offcuts from local butcher's.

Liver I quite like - but only in the way I cook it: I merely sear it and I complement it with bacon lardons or black pudding.
In the 1970s and 1980s, my parents cooked liver and kidneys until the offal was black, dry and devoid of taste....

philthetube · 2026-08-29T11:53:02+0100

The local butcher used to have steak and kidney on the same tray, it was common to ask for a llb of steak and kidney which would be 75% steak 25% kidney.

AndrewE · 2026-08-29T13:08:52+0100

I love (almost) all offal, and we are lucky enough to have a farm shop near here that has its own abattoir. When I asked for a couple of lambs kidneys the last time we were there the butcher (who is also the farmer and slaughterman) reached into the cavity of a lamb hanging in the shop, pulled them out and trimmed the suet off them! I hadn't expected that.

School dinners were usually very nice, except that I learned to avoid their braised liver, which was unfortunatley like a sheet of leather. OTOH nowadays strips of fresh liver from "our" butcher just browned and dropped into a pan of sweated onions are a favourite meal. Faggots are another favourite of mine, but when I had Tripoux in the Auvergne - which I thought were liver too - they were too bitter to enjoy: it turns out that they are intestines instead! see https://provenance.kitchen/technique/tripoux-dauvergne However Tripe and onions was a favourite meal in or house during my childhood. I suppose there must be a big difference between tripe (stomach) and intestines.

When we lived in Bristol I never had chitterlings, although they were given out in one city centre pub on a Saturday night... I did try andouiette in a cheap Paris restaurant once and they were absolutely foul!

I have never had brain or sweetbreads (that I am aware of), but I love the marrow in a leg of lamb when it has cooled, also black pudding which is sort-of-using offal, best if you can get a "Bury" one with cubes of fat in... The stuff from Redfern's farm shop at Harpur Hill is unique, being cooked in something spherical, and is probably the best I have ever had.

An unusual thing my dad (in the '60s) did was to get a pigs tail from the butcher and grill it (his dad had a cooked meat shop.) It was like crackling on a stick!

Haggis is another favourite (shout-out to Findlay's of Portobello) and I believe has/should have lungs in it, besides heart and liver, i.e. the whole "pluck." The only other thing which uses lungs to my knowledge is Devonshire - and Cornish? - hogs pudding. It's delicious fried.
My mouth is watering now...

najaB · 2026-08-29T16:01:07+0100

AndrewE said:
An unusual thing my dad (in the '60s) did was to get a pigs tail from the butcher and grill it (his dad had a cooked meat shop.) It was like crackling on a stick!

Didn't consider pig tails as offal - barbequed salted pig tails have become a bit of a delicacy in Barbados in recent years.

contrex · 2026-08-29T16:10:12+0100

philthetube said:
We had creative cooks at my school, one of the dishes served was braised ox heart.

Banned since BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy)

My first wife in 1976 used to stuff them - rice, mushrooms, onion, herbs. They weren't bad, quite 'beefy', but I didn't really like the veiny bits.

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AndrewE said:
When I asked for a couple of lambs kidneys the last time we were there the butcher (who is also the farmer and slaughterman) reached into the cavity of a lamb hanging in the shop, pulled them out and trimmed the suet off them!

About 40 years ago, when my son was 7, we were in an old-fashioned butchers, and he saw the lambs' kidneys, and asked where they came from. I don't know what got into me, but I said 'condemned criminals'. The butcher frowned and called out 'Don't tell the lad that!'.

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AndrewE said:
I did try andouiette in a cheap Paris restaurant once and they were absolutely foul!

I tried Andouillette de Troyes in a mid-price place in Nice. I only knew it was a kind of sausage (before smartphones!) and when it came I felt I had to eat or face the scorn of the very snooty waitress. It tasted like a pig-sty smells! An acquired taste, as my mother would have said. Not acquired by me!

Acathater · 2026-08-29T16:17:29+0100

philthetube said:
We had creative cooks at my school, one of the dishes served was braised ox heart.

Banned since BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy)

My mother came from a very poor family and for them an ox-heart was something special only purchased at Christmas / Easter and the occasional Sunday. Stuffed and roasted it was a delicacy (to them).
What was interesting was that they didn't roast it at home - the village bakers offered a baking service in their bread ovens on Sundays and Religious festivals. If that hadn't been available the only home cooking option they had was in a pot over an open fire

Swedenorer · 2026-08-29T16:49:04+0100

The butchery trade has changed beyond all recognition along with eating habits. When dad was in it up to the late 70s Offal, Bacon, Chops and Sausages kept them going bar Saturday. During the early week, bacon for cooked breakfasts, offal etc. for main meals after the Sunday joint stopped making an appearance one way or another about Tuesday. Compared with these days the amount of poultry sold was trivial, though increasing. Don't forget also the delicious bits of Pork - knuckle bones, bath chaps, trotters - which I haven't seen for years. It's about time they made a comeback imho. If you've seen a Pork Butcher still going anywhere I'd be suprised!

AM9 · 2026-08-29T16:50:18+0100

AndrewE said:
I love (almost) all offal, and we are lucky enough to have a farm shop near here that has its own abattoir. When I asked for a couple of lambs kidneys the last time we were there the butcher (who is also the farmer and slaughterman) reached into the cavity of a lamb hanging in the shop, pulled them out and trimmed the suet off them! I hadn't expected that.

School dinners were usually very nice, except that I learned to avoid their braised liver, which was unfortunatley like a sheet of leather. OTOH nowadays strips of fresh liver from "our" butcher just browned and dropped into a pan of sweated onions are a favourite meal. Faggots are another favourite of mine, but when I had Tripoux in the Auvergne - which I thought were liver too - they were too bitter to enjoy: it turns out that they are intestines instead! see https://provenance.kitchen/technique/tripoux-dauvergne However Tripe and onions was a favourite meal in or house during my childhood. I suppose there must be a big difference between tripe (stomach) and intestines.

When we lived in Bristol I never had chitterlings, although they were given out in one city centre pub on a Saturday night... I did try andouiette in a cheap Paris restaurant once and they were absolutely foul!

I have never had brain or sweetbreads (that I am aware of), but I love the marrow in a leg of lamb when it has cooled, also black pudding which is sort-of-using offal, best if you can get a "Bury" one with cubes of fat in... The stuff from Redfern's farm shop at Harpur Hill is unique, being cooked in something spherical, and is probably the best I have ever had.

An unusual thing my dad (in the '60s) did was to get a pigs tail from the butcher and grill it (his dad had a cooked meat shop.) It was like crackling on a stick!

Haggis is another favourite (shout-out to Findlay's of Portobello) and I believe has/should have lungs in it, besides heart and liver, i.e. the whole "pluck." The only other thing which uses lungs to my knowledge is Devonshire - and Cornish? - hogs pudding. It's delicious fried.
My mouth is watering now...

I regularly had various offal meats in my childhood in the '50s. Among my favourites were lamb's liver, ox and lamb's heart, lamb's kidneys, 0xtail, pig's trotter and hock (pig). All of this was cooked much as it was in the '20s & 30's.
Today, we still have liver (pig's is better), kidneys, lamb's heart and oxtail casserole. It is truly appalling how much meat is discarded owing to it's looks, it's (low) price and knowledge of which part of the animal it came from. Yet those who do reject many of these products are quite happy to consume sausages, burgers and huge quantities of low grade highly processed minced meat in chill bake products.
Strangely, many of these meats are available in local supermarkets, (including at Waitrose, - our local shop), so there must be a level of demand from locals who recognise the nutritional values that they have. *

About 20m years ago, my then GP said that animal heart flesh has content that benefits human hearts and was pleased to hear that i enjoyed it.

Acathater · 2026-08-29T16:53:31+0100

AM9 said:
About 20m years ago, my then GP said that animal heart flesh has content that benefits human hearts and was pleased to hear that i enjoyed it.

20m years ago? You must be a caveman

Ken X · 2026-08-29T17:14:51+0100

My recommendation is to those interested in offal and interesting cuts of meat is seek out a local butcher.

We are very lucky to have a lovely family butcher opposite our house. They are more than happy to chat and explain their products. I have watched the staff talk to customers at length suggesting what to buy and how best to cook it.

Some customers come in with a budget and are offered a range of meats and cuts to fit the budget available. (Reminds me how my mum used to manage her housekeeping when we were small.)

The supplying farms are listed on a board so you know exactly where the meat comes from. They will obtain practically anything you require. We have ordered goat, venison and game when in season.

In short, supermarkets may have their place but you can't beat local shops for service and a range of quality products.

Offal - why are less-desirable cuts of meat more expensive?

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