Publix Beef Tenderloin Price Per Pound

Photo by Jason Perlow.

By: Jason Perlow

A few weeks ago, my married woman Rachel and I happened to be at Aldi'south Coral Springs location, after several hours of errands and shopping. We were hungry, and wanted to bring home something for the 2 of us that we could set quickly, was loftier-protein, and that we would enjoy.

'Lo and behold, we saw a package of seemingly tender salary wrapped "beef filet", with extremely bonny pricing. Despite our experienced foodie sensibilities, in our weakened country of farthermost hunger and reeled-in past the rock-bottom price, we were suckered in.

Buyer Beware

Unfortunately, this product was not filet mignon or beef tenderloin as we idea it to be, every bit the labeling and the presentation are highly deceptive. Information technology was a perfect example of getting exactly what yous paid for — chewy, sinewy, not at all tender. Aldi'south Chuck Filet is nil like the real article of beefiness tenderloin, and it is from an entirely different role of the cow.

Buyer beware: never again.

It dawned on u.s.a., however, that there are many stores in Coral Springs that do sell the genuine commodity. But who sells the best production for the money — value and meat-quality wise?

Real beef tenderloin is not at all inexpensive. Information technology is one of the most expensive proteins you can buy. The all-time steakhouses marking information technology up like crazy. When it's expert, it's beefy and juicy; the most tender and virtually desirable cuts of steak that'south available. When it'south not, it is overpriced and disappointing. We endeavored to find out who in our city had the all-time.

What stores we chose and what we bought

We decided to buy beef tenderloin products just from retailers in the immediate Coral Springs expanse and non in other towns, such every bit Boca Raton or Margate, then no Western Beefiness or Penn Dutch. We realize these are both very popular stores, simply we had to make a call equally to the realistic grocery shopping radius of an actual Coral Springs resident, so we drew a hard line keeping our sampling within the city.

We also chose not to include discount clubs such every bit Sam's, BJ'southward, or Costco. While we've heard many good things virtually the beef products at those larger discount stores, nosotros wanted to approach this the way a busy couple or a small-scale family might decide to cook dinner i evening at the spur of the moment, which we felt was the most realistic way typical families and couples tend to store for food.

Disbelieve clubs usually sell beef tenderloin/filet mignon as entire uncut primals , and while this is a less-expensive strategy for feeding a larger family or cooking for a dinner party because the price per pound is significantly lower than ownership private steaks, nosotros didn't recall this was a normal scenario for cooking a typical beefiness tenderloin dinner for a few people.

Plus, we didn't accept the budget for buying unabridged beef tenderloin primals from each place. This is Coral Springs Talk , not Consumer Reports .

For the purposes of this article, we visited Whole Foods Marketplace, The Fresh Market, Publix, Lucky's Market, Walmart, Doris Italian Marketplace, and Wild Fork Foods.

Although we did not include it in the rankings since we didn't sample their filet, we also visited Danny'south Meat Market, an independent butcher shop on Sample Road. Unfortunately, Danny only sells tenderloin every bit whole primals ($11.95/lb for Choice). We did desire to try something from the shop, so we bought ane boneless ribeye ($5.99/lb). This fattier cutting was cooked first to both season the cast iron skillet, rendering some cooking fatty, and to give a textural comparison for the filets to come.

If possible, nosotros bought the highest-end case of what beef tenderloin was offered, whether it was USDA-graded Choice or Prime, non-USDA-graded Organic, Grain or Grass-Fed, aged or not anile. Nosotros also tried to buy ane beef filet portion from each shop of approximately the aforementioned size, around half a pound each, and of like thickness depending on what was available, although we encountered a lot of variance in how the pre-cutting steaks were actually sold, cutting and portioned. In the case of Wild Fork, since it is a brand new store and the get-go we visited when shopping, we bought both their Selection and Organic Grass-Fed filet to sample.

How we cooked and judged

All of the steaks were seared in a bandage iron pan on an electrical range, using beef fat from the sacrificial ribeye besides as salary grease. The thicker cuts were finished in a convection oven as needed. This was done for consistency and also to simulate the flavor from bacon-wrapping, typical of a filet mignon dinner.

For all of the steaks we attempted to hit medium-rare target doneness using timed cooking and a digital temperature probe, but because of the variance in steak thickness and also broad differences in fat marbling between the products we bought, as well as carryover rut during the resting of each tenderloin steak, we ended upward with steaks cooked in a range between rare and medium, which was accounted for during the bodily judging.

The steaks were seasoned simply with kosher salt and black pepper, and we did not use any kind of sauce. The reason for this was to gustation the natural flavor of the meat without anything that could possibly encompass up whatever imperfections in the beef itself.

In add-on to a tannic red wine, (Attractive Doon Quondam Telegram) we had a unproblematic salad and steamed asparagus on the table to refresh our palates between tastings. This immune the best examples to shine through and the worst ones to actually show how bad they really were.

All of the steaks were sampled bullheaded past three of the four judges — simply Rachel, who did the actual cooking, was enlightened of which steak was presented. This allowed three of us to gustation them without any preconceived notions or biases.

The steaks were judged on a scale of 1 to x on the footing of three factors: Beefiness (flavor), Texture and Juiciness.

The scoring was washed using an average of these three factors; so if a steak received a 5 for beef, a 7.5 for texture and a ix for juiciness, the amass score for that steak was a 7.two. Each judge then ranked the steaks in their order of preference. The judging panel re-tasted steaks equally needed later on they had additional fourth dimension to rest and absorb juices, to confirm our findings. One of the judges, a local teacher, so added upwards all the points for each steak to give them a composite score.

Overall, among the four judges, there was a strong consensus on which steaks were ranked the best too every bit which steaks ranked the worst — there was just a meaning variance in what was deemed to be in the middle because of the very small perceived differences in the quality of those products.

The top performers by straight-up quality and value per dollar

Our top performers by meat quality were both a surprise and likewise not and so surprising. Wild Fork Foods took first place — by a broad margin — for their less expensive Choice, 17-day aged Beef Filet ($xx.98/lb) and third place position for their premium Organic Aged Grass Fed Tenderloin ($25.98/lb). Doris Market place's Prime tenderloin ($26.99/lb) took 2nd place, merely it was merely a couple points ahead of 3rd.

Information technology should be noted that Wild Fork's portioning for a half-pound cryovac package is sold as two quarter-pound medallions — we believe this is to accelerate defrosting in the fridge (we defrosted ours in the refrigerator as recommended on their website). A 2-three minute sear per side on high estrus is sufficient to melt each medallion to medium-rare, permit to balance for a few minutes before serving. All of the judges were stunned that a flash-frozen product took beginning and 3rd place, and it just shows how far meat freezing technology has really come along. Ane of our judges described the start place Wild Fork steak as "extremely tender, finest grain and melting away" and "fine restaurant quality." whereas the tertiary place Wild Fork steak, the Organic Aged Tenderloin was described as "rich, smooth flavor, not quite melting away."

The second-place Doris Market Prime number Beef Tenderloin ($26.99/lb) was described equally "Fine grain, tender, very slight fat content" with "strong beefiness flavor and good salt retentiveness" and a "steakhouse standard".

Overall, the grain-fed steaks fared better in judging than the grass-fed ones considering they were juicer and had a much softer texture. Most of the grass-fed steaks were noted to accept a stronger, almost gamey, flavor.

The Wild Fork Selection, 17-day Anile Beef Tenderloin was not just our first place winner in terms of beefiness quality only it was also the winner in value per dollar. It should be noted that Wild Fork also sells a Prime version of their tenderloin ($23.98/lb) which for the purposes of this judging we were unable to try because information technology is only sold as an entire large beef primal. Wild Fork too stocks a Choice Chateaubriand roast ($xix.98/lb) which might be a more affordable option for a small family cooking dinner for one evening.

Our quaternary-place entry in terms of meat quality was actually second place in value per dollar — the Walmart Grass-Fed Beefiness Tenderloin under the Marketside Butcher make ($19.97/lb), in a sealed cryovac packaging. We did not go to try Walmart'southward regular Selection packaged tenderloin equally there was only ane portion left since it was on clearance and appeared fix to expire.

The lowest performers by meat quality and value per dollar

In improver to seeing a frozen steak take first and third place in our overall judging, the biggest surprise of the evening was seeing the almost expensive steak, the Whole Foods Organic Grass-Fed Australian Beef Filet ($32.99/lb) accept dead last identify in both meat quality and value per dollar. It was an absolutely stunning upset, we expected the meat section of Jeff Bezos and Amazon's about recent retail conquering to fare much better in this contest, especially for the price.

The Fresh Market as well did not do very well overall in the rankings with their Grass Fed Filet Mignon ($xix.99/lb). Information technology was described by some as "gamey" and "chewier" with a "tougher and denser" mouthfeel. Whole Foods' steak was described past one of the judges equally "livery" sense of taste, and while it was clearly fresh and unspoiled, information technology was noted to accept "an off flavor I practise not like" whereas another merely wrote "NO!" in their notes. This was unanimously the most disliked steak of the entire evening and ended up going to the poodles. To poodles, at that place is no such thing as bad steak!

Publix, the supermarket that is the most prevalent in S Florida, fared just a fiddling bit better than Fresh Marketplace with their Pick Beefiness Filet ($21.99/lb). I of our judges described it as "Fine grain with very low-fat content" and "Longhorn steakhouse special". Information technology was essentially dead-middle of the pack in overall rankings.

Lucky's, also a high-end supermarket, did slightly improve than Fresh Market and Publix in our rankings with their Choice Filet ($xviii.99/lb) which was on sale for $16.99/lb at the time of this writing.

Nevertheless, we very surprised how poorly Lucky's performed relative to the peak performers, given that well-nigh of united states of america have had a practiced experience with this supermarket overall in terms of their house brands and prepared nutrient products. I of the judges ranked it as their #iii steak overall and noted "Very adept, but not every bit good as the others". Whereas another wrote "coarse for a filet, nigh chewy" but "earthy and beefy" and "not eatery quality". Information technology was a controversial steak, to be sure.

Conclusion

The end effect of this exercise is that we learned that Wild Fork Foods, a Florida company, has some of the very all-time proteins to offer with their flash freezing technology. Their beef tenderloin is so much improve than the other players on the list in terms of meat quality that it really doesn't brand sense to store for this expensive protein anywhere else as long as you lot are able to defrost information technology in your refrigerator.

Based on our experiences with their beef tenderloin, nosotros're really looking forward to trying other things they sell, such as their pork, lamb, seafood, and other beef products.

Have you tried Wild Fork's beefiness tenderloin or other products yet? Do yous have any other local favorites selling filet? Log on to our Facebook group Foodies Who Review S Florida and join in on the discussion.

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Source: https://coralspringstalk.com/filet-mignon-wheres-the-best-beef-tenderloin-in-coral-springs-21784

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