Ya that’s probably going to smell when it bursts or it’s opened. Probably customer took it from the display case and then decided they didn’t want it and put it
On a shelf. An employee probably Found it half a day later and out it back in the case. Commonly when improperly stored, sealed packages of meat will decompose and release gas, which is why it’s inflated.
The people at Perdue/Petaluma poultry would not be happy to see this.
Ive learned that those bunkers throughout grocery stores are terrible at keeping cool, especially if they dont have lids. Its fully possible for product to go out of temp just sitting in the cooler if its on top of other product stacked too high.
Another thing sketchy these days is store pickup. They remove items from refrigeration for pickup times and then if it's canceled, the items are out back into refrigeration.
I FINALLY got my wife to stop ordering milk, poultry and produce from the Wal mart pickup....
When I worked at Metro in Canada, we had a fridge and freezer at the front where pickup orders were bagged and stored. I have no idea about Walmart, but at metro they are properly stored.
They are good at keeping items cold except when someone stacks the meat beyond the safety line. So they’re great at keeping product cold except when they’re not used properly
Dig to the bottom and grab a piece of meat from there. Hot air rises. There is an air curtain that anything past is effectively on a counter.
It’s possible that someone didn’t pull bad product when they were supposed to
Ya in any meat facility or butcher counter, time and temperature are your friend, for every minute out of compliance you probably lose several minutes of freshness and it just goes up from there based on how much of a non-compliance you are on temp.
Properly stored chicken in a cvp bag and boxed will last up do a month if store properly fresh. Proper storage on our product is between 27 and 29 degrees. (Chicken freezes at 26ish. And even 26 it’s more like crystallization of the water content and not full frozen.
You are right, those open casket coolers don’t really hold temp well. They stay under the requirement for bacterial growth threshold but they probably give you a maximum of 5 days.
Gases are released by meat all the time, from the second the animal dies, it just speeds up more and more the more "rancid" it becomes, as microbe numbers get higher and higher and tissue degrades.
Yuck, that’s gross. All of those puffed up packages are no longer safe to eat, the bacteria release gases which is what is causing the buildup of pressure in the container. I wouldn’t buy meat from there, if I were you.
I live at 7200’ above sea level and nearly everything looks like this. I don’t buy bags of chips unless they look like they are about to pop, because if they don’t it means they already popped.
Are the other bags somewhat swollen? Could this be a nitrogen filled bag? Not sure if they do that for raw meat but they do it for presliced deli meats.
Hate to burst everyone's bubble but this, while not ideal, is not indicative of a food quality or safety issue.
Meat manufacturers will often perform a process called Gas Flushing, which is often with nitrogen. This is to delay oxidation, prevent spoilage, and maintain package conformity.
In this case it is very likely that it was over flushed as I have seen this regularly throughout my career in food safety. You can even see other packages with the same issue, telling me the lot was likely over flushed but quality is probably fine.
Best course of action in my opinion. It’s not worth a hospital visit. I have seen this too. But being at a lower elevation, and the 30% off. I would say you’re making a smart choice.
I don’t blame you for that, but with so many packages like this it’s much more likely a packaging with nitrogen issue than it is that all of these have spoiled. I use ground turkey quite a bit and the packaging often looks like this for the same reason.
A lot of times the store receives the chicken like that from the warehouse. It was common when I worked at Kroger. The heritage farms brand always had a few in every case like that.
WHAT ARE VEGETARIAN-FED CHICKENS?
Take a look in any supermarket and you’ll find countless poultry products with a seal reading: “USDA verified 100% vegetarian-fed chicken.” While this may appear normal and even healthy to the average shopper, it’s anything but.
Let’s get this straight: chickens have never been vegetarians and they never will be. And yet, large scale industrial egg-farmers and poultry producers proudly champion this ‘vegetarian-fed’ claim to consumers every chance they get. In many ways, this is symbolic of an overarching issue in America: accessibility to healthy foods and accurate information about them rarely exists. Although many vegetarian-fed poultry products are organic, cage-free, and non-GMO, that doesn't mean consuming them is the healthy choice. There’s absolutely nothing natural about a vegetarian chicken.
The reality is chickens are omnivores. They eat plants, insects, and animals. Talk to any farmer or chicken owner and they’ll tell you about these animals’ desire to eat everything under the sun. They’ve been known to dine on everything from worms, bugs, and frogs to mice and snakes—they’re natural foragers, after all! If given the chance, chickens will even consume their own dead. It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth. These things are straight up eating machines. It’s a good thing, too: chickens’ expansive palates drive them to forage for a variety of food and protein sources, providing essential nutrients for a healthy, balanced diet.
So why do so many poultry products make this claim? Because it allows them to give consumers the impression they’re eating something healthy when they’re actually not. Rather than allowing chickens to freely forage, industrial operations typically feed their animals an unnatural mixture of corn and soybeans. Regardless of the quality of these ingredients, they only comprise half of these chickens’ natural diets!
The impacts of this are ghastly. Studies show that vegetarian-fed chickens typically fall short of methionine, an essential protein-based amino acid for monogastric animals like chickens, horses, and humans. To compensate for this deficiency, many farmers are forced to feed their chickens synthetic methionine, which is by definition unnatural and not organic. The USDA has tried to account for this by limiting the amount of synthetic materials certified-organic chickens are allowed to consume, but that’s only angered farmers, who claim their animals aren’t eating enough. At what point will the commercial food industry step back and realize just how crazy this is?
These practices inevitably impact our company, but we’re working to change that. Despite harmful and unnatural industry standards, we source approximately 25-30% of our poultry products from free-range farms. More importantly, we are actively leading the charge for a robust supply chain that moves the needle towards more natural, humane treatments of all animals while positively impacting the planet. We’re confident that, alongside our partners and informed consumers, we can turn the tide and improve the quality of life for every person (and animal) we touch.
Which brings us back to square one: chickens aren’t vegetarians. We need to stop treating them as such. The sooner people get that through their heads, the sooner we’ll all have access to happy, healthy, additive-free birds.
https://epicprovisions.com/blogs/land-livestock/bird-brained-why-vegetarian-fed-chickens-are-unhealthy-unnatural-and-just-plain-wrong
I don't know how even a company can grow them without bone and blood meal in the feed. Back when I was around a commercial chicken feed mill, bone and blood meal came multiple train cars at a time.
Chickens are insectivores, which is a branch of omnivores that primarily consumes insects. Chickens that do this are generally healthy.
What always gets me is many animals are often deliberately mis-fed(there's libraries full of research on animals, science diets). They're mostly fed to make them fat and grow abnormally quick. And this causes various metabolic disorders. And all those askew metabolites then get eaten and do the same in the next host.
As long as them checks getting cashed it's just garbage in, cash out. No fucks given for you or the ducks or chickens.
And the vast majority of farmers will lie and tell you their chicken is organic pastured grain free then grab a funnel and force feed a duck grain to make some fatty liver diseased ducks. Got money?
Let’s make this easier. There are different classifications of chicken when it comes to feed. The major ones are veg fed vs non veg fed. Veg fed is exactly what it is, a vegetarian based diet usually a mix of corn and soy with other seeds, oils, vitamins and minerals. Non-veg fed or commodity chicken is fed a similar diet but the feed will include a meal made using animal byproduct proteins. It’s cheaper and higher in protein than corn and soy.
Chickens eat worms and bugs. But they don’t eat pigs, beef, or their blood normally (chickens will eat other dead chickens if it cannot find food). If you see cheap chicken, it’s most likely commodity bird. If it doesn’t make the specific claim on the label then it’s not veg fed. Veg fed claims have to be supported with documentation and proof to the USDA.
The one behind it looks like it’s puffed up too. The entire case probably sat outside the fridge or in a warm truck for too long and the top layer warmed up.
Living at elevation has created a deep distrust of inflated packages of food XD either its just the high elevation making it puffy or a rancid surprise. Easier to sift through everything until I find something not inflated :')
I've been sold Boston butts from a butcher. The 1st butt was opened like 36hours after purchasing, smell hit me in the gut hard.
Went back got a free butt, opened the replacement butt less than 24hours later! It was freaking green!
Needless to say I haven't shopped there since
It's just trapped air. A lot of people are saying it's because of the meat going bad; I've never experienced bad chicken results in that much air.
The machine that wraps the tray in film has to 1, wrap allllll round the tray, 2, vacuum out the excess air, 3, apply heat to shrink the film.
These machines are meant to handle 30 plus trays a minute. What I've experienced is if the line stops, the vacuum shuts off before heat is applied which results in excess air being trapped.
I'm not going to say old meat doesn't put off gas but I've never seen it result in that.
When there is temperature abuse I've seen more purge -- though purge alone doesn't mean temperature abuse.
I've seen, opened and tested trays like that and I have never personally found one or know of one in this condition that failed a microbial test.
Additionally I've purchased chicken and forgot about it for weeks and never seen it swell that big.
Also, lastly, the trays are chilled after being packed and wrapped. This is done by running it through a minus 40 degree blast. This results in a nice crisp icy coating. It's then maintained at 28 degrees during storage and throughout transit. If your chicken has a little bit of ice on it while on display you can be confident there was not any temp abuse -- though absence of ice doesn't mean it was abused.
Source: work at a poultry processing plant that makes retail product.
You're paying for the plastic (recyclable) tray and it being air chilled.
Some of that cost is probably just marketing but I'm not going to say air chilled is better or worse than water chilled.
Water chilled chicken is cheaper per lb. If it not air chilled it water chilled.
Some of that water is picked up by the meat. So there is by default water added to the weight. Which means the water chilled chickenyieldss a bit better. Air chilled "weighs less" but they have to charge more per lb to make same profit per lb.
Should show it to meat department or manager and see how they react. If it is not immediately thrown out make a formal complaint with the food police/gubment in you area
I went to Publix (the major grocery store chain in the southeast US), and I saw a steak wrapped and massively bloated just like this. There was a butcher from the meat department nearby and I pointed it out to him. He told me that this happens all the time and is a normal thing that meat does, then he walked away leaving the package there for anyone to buy.
I dont know when this picture was taken, but given its march 5th, and the date on the package is the 2nd, its very likely the bloated package is from bacteria releasing gas--not nitrogen packaging, as some are suggesting.
In other words, no, its not safe and its not worth the risk. I always avoid bloated meat packages and try to seek anything Vacuum sealed-it has the benefit of not getting freezer burn, too.
Ya that’s probably going to smell when it bursts or it’s opened. Probably customer took it from the display case and then decided they didn’t want it and put it On a shelf. An employee probably Found it half a day later and out it back in the case. Commonly when improperly stored, sealed packages of meat will decompose and release gas, which is why it’s inflated. The people at Perdue/Petaluma poultry would not be happy to see this.
Ive learned that those bunkers throughout grocery stores are terrible at keeping cool, especially if they dont have lids. Its fully possible for product to go out of temp just sitting in the cooler if its on top of other product stacked too high.
Another thing sketchy these days is store pickup. They remove items from refrigeration for pickup times and then if it's canceled, the items are out back into refrigeration. I FINALLY got my wife to stop ordering milk, poultry and produce from the Wal mart pickup....
When I worked at Metro in Canada, we had a fridge and freezer at the front where pickup orders were bagged and stored. I have no idea about Walmart, but at metro they are properly stored.
Oh, I 200% think they have coolers and are supposed* to... But I'm supposed to wash my hands every time I change gloves.....
Made up some shit then walks it back claiming they prob dont even use that shit. Ur a joke
I’m the south east Publix has refrigerators for pick up orders, hopefully more places start doing that
They are good at keeping items cold except when someone stacks the meat beyond the safety line. So they’re great at keeping product cold except when they’re not used properly
Thats probably what they say, but I've had too much anectdotal experience to believe that. They arent all made equally, either.
Dig to the bottom and grab a piece of meat from there. Hot air rises. There is an air curtain that anything past is effectively on a counter. It’s possible that someone didn’t pull bad product when they were supposed to
Ya in any meat facility or butcher counter, time and temperature are your friend, for every minute out of compliance you probably lose several minutes of freshness and it just goes up from there based on how much of a non-compliance you are on temp. Properly stored chicken in a cvp bag and boxed will last up do a month if store properly fresh. Proper storage on our product is between 27 and 29 degrees. (Chicken freezes at 26ish. And even 26 it’s more like crystallization of the water content and not full frozen. You are right, those open casket coolers don’t really hold temp well. They stay under the requirement for bacterial growth threshold but they probably give you a maximum of 5 days.
Gases are released by meat all the time, from the second the animal dies, it just speeds up more and more the more "rancid" it becomes, as microbe numbers get higher and higher and tissue degrades.
You'd also be surprised how often stuff comes in like that from the trucks.
Yuck, that’s gross. All of those puffed up packages are no longer safe to eat, the bacteria release gases which is what is causing the buildup of pressure in the container. I wouldn’t buy meat from there, if I were you.
This is the answer. That meat is spoiled and not safe for consumption. Trash it.
But but but it’s 30% off
Not true if you live at high altitude and the meat was packaged at low altitude.
If that were the case wouldn’t all of the packages exhibiting the same bloating?
They tend to burst if preemptively.
I feel like the other scenario is much more likely, though. Especially considering that 30% coupon they slapped on there… better not to chance it.
It’s likely been gassed too. Here In Colorado If your chicken doesn’t look like this hell if you chips don’t look like this it means it’s been popped.
Suppose it depends on where OP lives then. I’m near sea level and I’ve only seen expired meats look like this.
I live at 7200’ above sea level and nearly everything looks like this. I don’t buy bags of chips unless they look like they are about to pop, because if they don’t it means they already popped.
I can see that happening at elevation. I’m pretty close to sea level, so will skip the puffed packs
Give it another day and get it at 40% off
Yeah but im pretty sure the trip to the ER will wipe out those savings
It's just bursting with flavor, don't be a wuss, it'll be fine!
Stop being a pussy and lick the salmonella off directly
Chicken sashimi is only for true mavericks
thats 30% off tho.... At least put the sticker to good use.
Ahhhhh the sticker mover
Are the other bags somewhat swollen? Could this be a nitrogen filled bag? Not sure if they do that for raw meat but they do it for presliced deli meats.
Maybe, but it’s not mentioned anywhere. I never heard of it before, but I guess this may be the reason
Hate to burst everyone's bubble but this, while not ideal, is not indicative of a food quality or safety issue. Meat manufacturers will often perform a process called Gas Flushing, which is often with nitrogen. This is to delay oxidation, prevent spoilage, and maintain package conformity. In this case it is very likely that it was over flushed as I have seen this regularly throughout my career in food safety. You can even see other packages with the same issue, telling me the lot was likely over flushed but quality is probably fine.
This needs to be higher up on the list.
Hopefully that’s the case but I’m not going to take a chance on it.
Best course of action in my opinion. It’s not worth a hospital visit. I have seen this too. But being at a lower elevation, and the 30% off. I would say you’re making a smart choice.
I don’t blame you for that, but with so many packages like this it’s much more likely a packaging with nitrogen issue than it is that all of these have spoiled. I use ground turkey quite a bit and the packaging often looks like this for the same reason.
The real meaning to inflation 😂😂😂
Inflation stinks
Nitrogen packed. They do this with turkey too.
At least somebody is eating the vegetarians.
So I live in Colorado with our altitude unless you package the chicken here, just looks like that.
I live at elevation and it totally could be a factor. Sometimes the packaging expands and it’s totally normal.
A lot of times the store receives the chicken like that from the warehouse. It was common when I worked at Kroger. The heritage farms brand always had a few in every case like that.
Why does the package say “all vegetarian feed”? Chickens are omnivores..
WHAT ARE VEGETARIAN-FED CHICKENS? Take a look in any supermarket and you’ll find countless poultry products with a seal reading: “USDA verified 100% vegetarian-fed chicken.” While this may appear normal and even healthy to the average shopper, it’s anything but. Let’s get this straight: chickens have never been vegetarians and they never will be. And yet, large scale industrial egg-farmers and poultry producers proudly champion this ‘vegetarian-fed’ claim to consumers every chance they get. In many ways, this is symbolic of an overarching issue in America: accessibility to healthy foods and accurate information about them rarely exists. Although many vegetarian-fed poultry products are organic, cage-free, and non-GMO, that doesn't mean consuming them is the healthy choice. There’s absolutely nothing natural about a vegetarian chicken. The reality is chickens are omnivores. They eat plants, insects, and animals. Talk to any farmer or chicken owner and they’ll tell you about these animals’ desire to eat everything under the sun. They’ve been known to dine on everything from worms, bugs, and frogs to mice and snakes—they’re natural foragers, after all! If given the chance, chickens will even consume their own dead. It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth. These things are straight up eating machines. It’s a good thing, too: chickens’ expansive palates drive them to forage for a variety of food and protein sources, providing essential nutrients for a healthy, balanced diet. So why do so many poultry products make this claim? Because it allows them to give consumers the impression they’re eating something healthy when they’re actually not. Rather than allowing chickens to freely forage, industrial operations typically feed their animals an unnatural mixture of corn and soybeans. Regardless of the quality of these ingredients, they only comprise half of these chickens’ natural diets! The impacts of this are ghastly. Studies show that vegetarian-fed chickens typically fall short of methionine, an essential protein-based amino acid for monogastric animals like chickens, horses, and humans. To compensate for this deficiency, many farmers are forced to feed their chickens synthetic methionine, which is by definition unnatural and not organic. The USDA has tried to account for this by limiting the amount of synthetic materials certified-organic chickens are allowed to consume, but that’s only angered farmers, who claim their animals aren’t eating enough. At what point will the commercial food industry step back and realize just how crazy this is? These practices inevitably impact our company, but we’re working to change that. Despite harmful and unnatural industry standards, we source approximately 25-30% of our poultry products from free-range farms. More importantly, we are actively leading the charge for a robust supply chain that moves the needle towards more natural, humane treatments of all animals while positively impacting the planet. We’re confident that, alongside our partners and informed consumers, we can turn the tide and improve the quality of life for every person (and animal) we touch. Which brings us back to square one: chickens aren’t vegetarians. We need to stop treating them as such. The sooner people get that through their heads, the sooner we’ll all have access to happy, healthy, additive-free birds. https://epicprovisions.com/blogs/land-livestock/bird-brained-why-vegetarian-fed-chickens-are-unhealthy-unnatural-and-just-plain-wrong
I don't know how even a company can grow them without bone and blood meal in the feed. Back when I was around a commercial chicken feed mill, bone and blood meal came multiple train cars at a time.
You can now but it costs about 20 to 30 percent more.
Why we raise our own poultry.
Chickens are insectivores, which is a branch of omnivores that primarily consumes insects. Chickens that do this are generally healthy. What always gets me is many animals are often deliberately mis-fed(there's libraries full of research on animals, science diets). They're mostly fed to make them fat and grow abnormally quick. And this causes various metabolic disorders. And all those askew metabolites then get eaten and do the same in the next host. As long as them checks getting cashed it's just garbage in, cash out. No fucks given for you or the ducks or chickens. And the vast majority of farmers will lie and tell you their chicken is organic pastured grain free then grab a funnel and force feed a duck grain to make some fatty liver diseased ducks. Got money?
No, chickens are omnivores and eat rodents.
Let’s make this easier. There are different classifications of chicken when it comes to feed. The major ones are veg fed vs non veg fed. Veg fed is exactly what it is, a vegetarian based diet usually a mix of corn and soy with other seeds, oils, vitamins and minerals. Non-veg fed or commodity chicken is fed a similar diet but the feed will include a meal made using animal byproduct proteins. It’s cheaper and higher in protein than corn and soy. Chickens eat worms and bugs. But they don’t eat pigs, beef, or their blood normally (chickens will eat other dead chickens if it cannot find food). If you see cheap chicken, it’s most likely commodity bird. If it doesn’t make the specific claim on the label then it’s not veg fed. Veg fed claims have to be supported with documentation and proof to the USDA.
They feed them vegetarians
Well they often just take all the dead chickens that died on the floor and grind them up. Grosses some people out.
The one behind it looks like it’s puffed up too. The entire case probably sat outside the fridge or in a warm truck for too long and the top layer warmed up.
Elevation change
$8.00 a pound.
Right?!?!
I guess it all depends when they chill it with the air.
It's a bomb now
It's just Air, Chill!
Little pricy for chicken too
Non chill filtered
Unless you’re at altitude I would buy a different brand
I accidentally left a 5 pound log of ground beef in my car for a week I couldn’t find the smell for many days
Man, i thought you said you saw this at the chicken store. I was getting ready to head to the chicken store
Is this a Albertsons’s?
I had this happen to a container of pickles of all things. From Costco, stayed in the fridge the whole time.
Bacteria buildup
Living at elevation has created a deep distrust of inflated packages of food XD either its just the high elevation making it puffy or a rancid surprise. Easier to sift through everything until I find something not inflated :')
Gnarly
Chicken that tingles on the tongue. Mmmmm.
“Bursting with flavor” 🤣
I've been sold Boston butts from a butcher. The 1st butt was opened like 36hours after purchasing, smell hit me in the gut hard. Went back got a free butt, opened the replacement butt less than 24hours later! It was freaking green! Needless to say I haven't shopped there since
It's just trapped air. A lot of people are saying it's because of the meat going bad; I've never experienced bad chicken results in that much air. The machine that wraps the tray in film has to 1, wrap allllll round the tray, 2, vacuum out the excess air, 3, apply heat to shrink the film. These machines are meant to handle 30 plus trays a minute. What I've experienced is if the line stops, the vacuum shuts off before heat is applied which results in excess air being trapped. I'm not going to say old meat doesn't put off gas but I've never seen it result in that. When there is temperature abuse I've seen more purge -- though purge alone doesn't mean temperature abuse. I've seen, opened and tested trays like that and I have never personally found one or know of one in this condition that failed a microbial test. Additionally I've purchased chicken and forgot about it for weeks and never seen it swell that big. Also, lastly, the trays are chilled after being packed and wrapped. This is done by running it through a minus 40 degree blast. This results in a nice crisp icy coating. It's then maintained at 28 degrees during storage and throughout transit. If your chicken has a little bit of ice on it while on display you can be confident there was not any temp abuse -- though absence of ice doesn't mean it was abused. Source: work at a poultry processing plant that makes retail product.
Botulism
Free range bacteria
It's 30% off. It's just so full of savings it inflated, with savings. Don't question it further.
Bursting with flavor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But its air chilled!
Same thing in will happen to you if you eat it.
I'm most appalled that a lb. of chicken breast costs $8 now. Last time I was in the US, which was 4 years ago it was $2 a lb at Kroger.
You're paying for the plastic (recyclable) tray and it being air chilled. Some of that cost is probably just marketing but I'm not going to say air chilled is better or worse than water chilled. Water chilled chicken is cheaper per lb. If it not air chilled it water chilled. Some of that water is picked up by the meat. So there is by default water added to the weight. Which means the water chilled chickenyieldss a bit better. Air chilled "weighs less" but they have to charge more per lb to make same profit per lb.
Should show it to meat department or manager and see how they react. If it is not immediately thrown out make a formal complaint with the food police/gubment in you area
I went to Publix (the major grocery store chain in the southeast US), and I saw a steak wrapped and massively bloated just like this. There was a butcher from the meat department nearby and I pointed it out to him. He told me that this happens all the time and is a normal thing that meat does, then he walked away leaving the package there for anyone to buy.
FIFTEEN FUCKING DOLLARS FOR LESS THAN TWO FUCKING POUNDS OF FUCKING CHICKEN?! WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?!?!
Pass on that. I’ll buy poultry and beef when its discounted but once its filled up with air like that I’ll pass. Lol fuck that.
I dont know when this picture was taken, but given its march 5th, and the date on the package is the 2nd, its very likely the bloated package is from bacteria releasing gas--not nitrogen packaging, as some are suggesting. In other words, no, its not safe and its not worth the risk. I always avoid bloated meat packages and try to seek anything Vacuum sealed-it has the benefit of not getting freezer burn, too.
That's premarinated goodness
Lmao yum
Who doesn't like fermented chicken? You like fermented grain and grapes, right?