WalMart Steaks: All Fizzle, No Sizzle

Filed under: Savvy Eats and Drinks — admin at 11:25 am on Tuesday, June 10, 2008

When we returned from our Florida beach vacation earlier this month, Savvy Dad went to WalMart solo for a blitzkrieg grocery shopping trip. He spent more than $300 on groceries. The cupboards were bare no more!

Typically we don’t buy meat or seafood at WalMart, but purchase our steaks and ground chuck and tilapia and salmon filets at Publix or Harris Teeter. However, Savvy Dad was impressed with the look of the new Genuine Steakhouse steaks at WalMart and bought a $14 package. I’ve seen the commercials and WalMart is really pumping this line of steaks on TV and on their website as being prime cut and “bursting with flavor.”

I’m sure you know where I’m going with this.

Savvy Dad fired up our backyard gas grill and threw the steaks on. Now they looked beautiful. We were both anxious to sit down and have a nice juicy steak for dinner. Unfortunately the steaks tasted horrible. They had very little flavor. I am not a food critic, but I’d describe the taste as flat and old. We ended up giving the steaks to our dogs, who were quite happy with the $14 dog treats.

Not wanting to flush our hard earned money down the drain, or down our dogs’ gullets, I took the receipt and the empty package to WalMart’s service center. My money was refunded, no questions asked, and I promptly respent the $14 on supplies for my daughter’s 6th birthday cookout. However, we will never buy steaks at WalMart again. Thankfully all of our other food purchases from that grocery trip, including a pack of chicken breasts, have been fine.

Have you tried WalMart’s Genuine Steakhouse steaks? What did you think?

7 Comments »

Comment by: rachel

June 10, 2008 @ 11:35 am

Our Walmart got rid of their fresh seafood and meat department and now has only that line of steaks and they are horrible. It wasn’t just the ones y’all got. They are awful.
I buy either at HEB or a meat market from now on.
Glad they refunded your money and that the rest of your stuff wasn’t bunk.

Comment by: Robin

June 10, 2008 @ 4:37 pm

I try to avoid shopping at WalMart if possible, but have put a permanent ban on their meat and produce altogether. I learned that the way they keep their prices low on meat and fish is to raise the animals out of the country in substandard conditions … how else can they sell salmon so cheap.

Comment by: Nohell

June 10, 2008 @ 6:08 pm

This doesn’t have anything to do with steaks and it’s barely Wal-Mart related but…Did you hear about the 4-year-old girl shooting herself in a Columbia, S.C. Sam’s Club after fishing a pistol out of her grandmother’s purse? Granny had a concealed weapon permit and unless there’s a warning sign outside a business to tell people not to bring their weapons inside, then it’s OK to pack a pistol in the store. As one woman said, “It was an accident but an accident waiting to happen.”

Comment by: Amy

June 11, 2008 @ 2:38 pm

I did the same thing and to me it was just pretty packaging on their old, tired, tasteless meat. Bummer! I didn’t think to take it back, stupid me!

Comment by: Kait

June 13, 2008 @ 9:51 am

Thank goodness for Walmart’s great return policy. That’s helped me out a lot in the past… I bet you felt a lot better after getting your money back
Kaits last blog post..Restaurant review: Aspetta Caffe, Kensington Market, Toronto

Comment by: Jamie

June 14, 2008 @ 7:22 am

Savvy Dad said the meat tasted “gamey.”

It just had an odd flavor…it looked wonderful, but had a horrible taste, like it was a bad cut of meat. Someone asked me if I thought it had been frozen and then thawed out. I don’t know…but we won’t buy steaks from WalMart again.

Jamies last blog post..OK, So You Can Be Too Blonde And Too Thin