The real reason budget meat cuts are suddenly so expensive this winter

When times get tough, Aussie shoppers traditionally pivot to budget-friendly cuts of meat such as chuck, brisket, skirt and iron steaks and lamb shanks to stretch the family budget.

But if you’ve checked the supermarket shelves recently, you might have noticed a painful truth: the humble “cheap cut” isn’t so cheap any more.

Craig Munro of Munro’s Quality Meats said shoppers faced a perfect storm of rising overall livestock prices and viral social media trends, driving the demand for these frugal favourites to an all-time high.

“We have noticed this over the last few years with the American barbecue trend, the slow-cooked briskets on the barbecue and the beef ribs on the smoker,” he said.

He added that iron steaks and skirt steaks had also become more popular for the same reason.

“Iron steak comes from the shoulder blade and they are very, very popular in South America? Same as the skirt steak, popular within South Americans and made its way to Australia as well.”

Even good old chuck steak has surged in popularity.

“Chuck is very, very popular. It’s got that muscular fat and because it’s part of theforequarter of beef, it carries a lot of the weight,” he explained.

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“So it’s just a very, very hard working muscle and it has a great depth of flavour.”

Although the price of these historically “secondary” cuts remains stable throughout the year, they have not escaped the broader economic pinch.

Munro said the rising price of these budget cuts coincided with the cost of the whole animal going up.

“So you might notice that those cheaper cuts are becoming more expensive, but when you also look at the prime cuts, it’s going up by the same percentage,” Munro explained.

Lamb shanks are currently on sale at Coles and Woolworths for $14 a kilo. Chuck steak is selling from $17.99 a kilo at Aldi, $17 a kilo thanks to a special price at Coles, and $20 a kilo at Woolies.

Brisket is priced at $16.99 a kilo at Aldi, $18 a kilo at Woolies and Coles. Skirt steak appears to be harder to find but iron steak is selling for $39 a kilo at Coles.

The silver lining for consumers is that overall prices for beef, lamb and pork are currently holding steady, putting an end to the wild price hikes and supply chain chaos of recent years.

“It looks like everything’s holding steady at the moment or what I would expect it to be in this sort of climate,” Munro said.

Aussie buying habits have now fallen into a predictable weekly rhythm, with families sticking to staples such as mince, sausages and schnitzels during the week, before firing up the grill for premium steaks and barbecue cuts when the weekend rolls around.

“And then towards the weekend is when those barbecues are coming out, and you see a lot more of those prime cuts being purchased.”