Pork Butts from BJ's Wholesale Club

I have always found BJs meats to be top quality - really my preferred source if they carry what I want. The meat manager and staff have always been knowledgeable and helpful. From your description I suspect that the meat is not being re-dated, but simply poorly handled somewhere along the supply route. Probably spent some number of hours improperly refrigerated. The in-store people have no control over how it is handled before it reaches the store. Of course, if it was repackaged (not cryovac) then the store people should have noticed and pulled it.

Never used them, but if I had that many bad ones in that short a time, I'd suspect what you do, that something is going on. If he can't give a better explanation than that, he's not very good at his job.

I'd also suspect that along the way the food spent more time in the danger zone. Could have been sitting on the loading dock while he was out front returning money

The pack date is on the case. It should match the Cryovacs inside. I've gotten bad ribs from Costco before. Mostly during summer months. I cut the price off and threw the meat out. They never questioned giving me a refund based on just the sticker. I like SAMS IBP (which is Tysons) butts & ribs better than Costco's Swift.

I gave consideration to improper handling, temps. The fact that this recently happening again causes doubt as it's been pretty darn cold this last month.

On the plus side, I've never had a problem with ribs from BJ's and I go thru 1+ case @ week.

I plan to buy PB's by the case from a Boston purveyor from now on. Little more $ and some will have to hit the freezer but it eliminates the guess work.

Thanks for the replies.

MaxQ,

I got a couple slabs from SAM's two weeks ago for my birthday, it was a 2 pack for $20.00 - one slab for me, one for my nice next door neighbor. It was the Daily Chef brand. They went right home and into the fridge. I had them 2 days before I used them, the use by date was still 4 days off, they smelled some, I washed them off very carefully and used Cookshack Rib Rub, they turned out ok but it felt weird using meat and gifting it that had that smell... I won't buy the Daily Chef brand ribs again. I'll stick with the pricier stuff and really look at the use by date. It's so busy at those places the meat could have sat out on the dock in the danger zone at my local store OR somewhere along the way from the packers. It'll have me really checking packing dates carefully - if I ever open a cryovac that smells like THAT again the whole thing is going back so I can make a fuss at Customer Service.

I had an off smell with close dates on many racks (but few butts). After a good rinse, they're usually ok, even if a little slimy. Meat gives off gasses, which is sometime contained In a cryovac. I think it's worse on the all natural ones than the ones with then 6 or 7 percent solution, as there is some salt in that. I did get a dozen racks at Wal-Mart one time that smelled fine. Went ahead and cut them down to spares, and as I cut thru a joint, green goo came out of the inside of one of bones. I was physically ill, and took them back for a refund.