Where are the Ribs?

[Reds Fan 5]

June and July are difficult to plan long cooks because our son plays baseball and his tournament game times are determined by the results of their first game each weekend. Last weekend we were off on Sunday on less than 24 hours notice. I wanted to smoke a couple of racks of ribs. I typically buy the cryovac 3-pack at Costco (though the last two I bought weren’t great); however, due to road construction, getting to our local Costco is not easy. I went to Jewel (Albertsons). They only had some anemic looking cryovac baby backs. Went to Mariano’s (Kroger) They had some less than appealing baby backs in the butcher case. They had Hormel baby backs on clearance. Not only did they look terrible, they appeared to have been opened and re-wrapped.

I went to two other locally based stores. One had less than desirable baby backs. One had no ribs. I should mention the anemic babybacks at each stop were $9.95/lb (other than the Hormel on clearance). Four stores, no spares/St Louis cut, overpriced poor quality baby backs.

I’ve never had this much difficulty finding ribs. So, where are the ribs?

[Jerod Broussard]

BBQ websites pushing higher than normal demand.

[J-Melt]

If you are cool making a trip into the city, Park Packing at 4104 S Ashland in Chicago is running spare ribs for $1.49/pound.

[Jfrosty27]

Plenty of ribs in my neck of the woods. And no where near $10 per pound. Low $3 to near $5.00 mostly. Depends on where you’re shopping of course.

[Smoke em if you got em]

I’m with you on the cryovac 3 pack at Costco. I have avoided their pork for several years, they were great at one time, but the last pork chops I had from there were so tough, you couldn’t cut the gravy! I trimmed the remaining chops and ground them in with other pork for sausage.
I decided to try the ribs again recently and regret it. I smoked a rack last week, and while edible, they were far from what I was hoping for. Now I have two more racks that I’m not crazy about cooking. It will be a bit of trimming, but I think they are destined to be in the next batch of sausage.

[Duanessmokedmeats]

In my freezer...

[Alan Brice]

Last I was at Costco, couple days ago, ribs looked great! Three packs. I did not price them but there was a shite tonne of choice briskie.
$4.29 pound. Guess what? There still is. Seeya!

[Jfrosty27]

Wild Fork Foods. Either St. Louis spares or back ribs. $2.98/pound. I always get mine from them. They arrive next day and frozen like a rock. Always great quality. This is my advice. Of course you need to plan ahead a little bit. 🤷♂️

[texastweeter]

Brookshires here in ETX has plenty

[CRO]

Woodmans Market has a pretty good selection and price.
Closest store to you is North Aurora.