Kansas City Food Blog

​The fact that consumers are eating at home more often is spiking demand for premium cuts of steak, according to this Reuters report.

Statistics from last week's Worldwide Food Expo show that grocery stores are offering aggressive specials and high-end steaks in promotions designed to bring more customers into their stores. According to Midan Marketing, sales of premium steaks are up 15 percent in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the previous year, and overall the sales of meat and poultry are up 12 percent.

The democratization of steak is a recent trend. Consider the Genuine Steakhouse Steaks (I'm still not sure what the brand name means) ads from Walmart, which depict a wife's internal monologue as her husband appears puzzled as to why he has come home to a steak dinner. Gender roles aside, the message is illuminated on Walmart's Web site: "You won't need to wait for a special occasion to grill up restaurant-quality steak."

So, repeat after me. What do we want? Restaurant quality steaks. When do we want them? Now!

The real challenge is once we've got all these great steaks at home, what are we going to do with them. Because with great steak, comes great responsibility.

[Image via Flickr: thebusybrain]