From the moment he won Olympic Gold at nineteen, George Foreman has never slowed down. His pro boxing career was among the best of all time, winning the World Heavyweight Championship twice, including a comeback at age 45 in which he become the oldest ever to hold the title. When he finally hung his boxing gloves up for good with a career record of 76-5 (68 of the wines by knockout) he quickly pursued his other passion, food. Most famously, he lent his name to a line of low fat cooking devices, the George Foreman Grill, which brought him enormous success, to the tune of well over $100 million. Now at age 66, he is returning to the food game with his own mail order online meat business, George Foreman’s Butcher Shop.
I have to admit I was a bit skeptical when I was contacted about the new venture, because a lot of mail order meat is mediocre, and a lot of celebrities and former athletes use their names for ill-conceived ventures. But given his long history in the cooking business, I agreed to give the products a try. I’m glad I did. The story his publicists spin is one of a direct to the consumer old school butcher shop, like the kind that once thrived in actual neighborhoods, but with modern e-tail convenience. Foreman grew up in Houston, and according to a release, “George Foreman’s Butcher Shop embodies the artistry and craftsmanship of classic Houston butchers - George wanted to provide that nostalgic feeling of smoked-out meats and good eats from when he was a kid growing up…”
They chose to send me George Foreman’s Ultimate Variety Pack, or as the site describes it “All of George’s Favorites Rolled Into One!” But before I even got the delivery, I have to say I was quite impressed with the site, which is well organized and contains a lot of useful consumer info, much of which is unrelated to anything they sell. For example, they have interactive guides to cuts of beef and pork, which are described in a way that educates visitors, even though many are cuts not available from the online shop. Similarly, there are general grilling tips, temperature guides, and other info that they don’t need to offer, but do.
But what about the meat?
The one item that really wowed me was the Peppercorn Crusted Tri-Tip. While it is beginning to enjoy more widespread popularity, tri-tip is a traditionally less well-known “butcher’s cut,” slang for meats beef aficionados love that the general public is less familiar with, including hanger steaks and sirloin flap (bavette). Tri-tip is also the traditional cut for making Santa Maria Style BBQ, in turn the “secret” fifth major regional American style of ‘cue (after Texas, Memphis, KC and Carolina), almost completely limited to Central California. It’s a choice worthy of the butcher shop backstory, but more importantly it was completely delicious, good meat perfectly seasoned and easy to cook.
I also tried the NY Strip, and while it is graded USDA Choice, the second consumer tier and below the most desirable Prime, this was a very good steak, far superior to the typical Choice version you can find in supermarkets. While the information is not readily available to consumers, there are actually serval different gradations within the three grades allowed on labels by the USDA (Prime, Choice and Select) and not all Choice is equally choice. The site describes all of its beef as being in one of two categories, George’s Ranch Reserve or Foreman’s Family Vault, the former with a very vague description, “Only George’s Premium Quality Beef can be Qualified George’s Ranch Reserve.” There are numerous proprietary grading programs that can be set to standards higher than those used by the USDA, such as Certified Angus Beef, one of the most popular such verified programs. I’ve written a lot on steak and a lot on the way our meat supply is produced and graded, and while it is not clear exactly what standards George’s Ranch Reserve meets, the steak was excellent.
But I am more impressed with the higher Foreman Family Vault beef, which while pricy, meets what is known in beef parlance as the “Never, Ever Three” standard: it comes from cattle that have never been given antibiotics, growth hormones or steroids, all of which are very widely used in domestic beef, including most supermarket beef. Personally I’ve seen enough data linking our mass-produced beef with the explosive rise of drug resistant infections to make me seek out antibiotic-free beef, but it is surprisingly hard to find. In addition, the Family Vault beef is sourced from farms that use 100% vegetarian feed (cattle are all vegetarians by nature, but in the U.S. they can be force fed animal byproducts and often are) and from cattle that are pasture raised, meaning they range freely outdoors (most domestic beef cattle are confined to indoor feedlots). This is the kind of beef I would call natural, though it far surpasses the almost non-existent USDA definition of natural. It is very hard to find such beef at retail, especially in supermarkets, and it doesn’t just taste better, it is better.
That being said, not everything in the box wowed me. One of the proudest signature products is weird burger patties containing internal cheese and bacon along with ground beef, a bacon cheeseburger in patty form, and I didn’t care for it - while easy to cook, it remained an unappetizing gray color throughout, lacked the textural punch of bacon strips, and I’d rather add my own bacon and cheese. The flavoring on the roasted pineapple teriyaki chicken breast was actually quite good, but at the end of the day, like all the poultry choices here, they are boneless, skinless chicken breasts, one of the blandest food products in existence. The all-beef hot dogs were good, but it is not especially difficult to find higher quality premium hot dogs. If I was ordering from the shop, I’d stick to the Champ’s strengths, whole beef cuts, especially the purer Foreman Family Vault products and the Tri-Tip roast, which won me over in a unanimous decision.
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