Vent: My shop's pork shoulder waste hit 18% last quarter

I was doing our usual trim and scrap count for the quarter, just going through the logs. When I added up the pork shoulder numbers, the waste came out to 18% of the total weight we processed. That's a jump from our usual 12-14%. I think the new supplier's cuts are coming in with way more excess fat caps than before. Has anyone else seen a sudden spike in trim from a specific cut?

4 comments

4 Comments

wade_kelly772mo ago

Check your own trim specs first before blaming the supplier. Maybe your team's cutting standards have slipped.

abby_martinez2mo ago

Man, 18%... that's rough. You ever get a shoulder in that looks less like a cut of meat and more like a science project you forgot in the back of the fridge? I swear the last one I saw had a fat cap so thick you could've used it as a winter coat liner. Makes you wonder if they're just sending the whole pig blanket along with it.

kai_burns732mo ago

Honestly that tracks with what I see everywhere now, corners getting cut to save a dime. My grocery store chicken has these huge pads of gristle lately, stuff I never used to see. Feels like everyone's pushing the waste down the line to the buyer, makes your job way harder. You're not just trimming fat, you're paying for their poor standards.

lucast819d ago

Whoa hold on, have you checked if your cooler temp's been steady? I had a spell last year where our walk-in was drifting up a few degrees overnight, and it made the fat on shoulders turn almost mushy and slippery. That soft fat doesn't cut clean, so you end up having to take way more trim off just to get a decent edge on your cut. Took me weeks to find it, because the logs all looked fine. They replaced a gasket on the door and the waste dropped right back down to our normal number. So maybe it's not just what's coming in, but how it's sitting once it gets there.