It’s not the necessarily because of price, but rather the relative fat content. Occasionally, one can find a higher grade of meat mixed into the pile that seems to me mislabeled. Some savvy butchers will sneak a cut they intend to pick up at the end of shift “conveniently” placed into the open case.
With meat especially, there’s a window where it’s not able to be sold, but it’s not yet spoiled. My husband is a butcher’s apprentice, and I supply like 6 of my coworkers and their families with enough free meat that they don’t need to buy it.
It’s fucked up not to allow butchers to take that meat for free. I understand the logic behind it, but think that if owners properly paid and vetted their employees, they wouldn’t need to worry about them deceiving the business. Or you know, if the butchers were part owners themselves.
Especially true for mushrooms. “How much stem is in these?”, pretending I have any actual intuition for how much relative value I’m getting from one container of oyster mushrooms to another.
