Full Disclosure: Even though I’ve written about my love of purchasing chicken in bulk from Zaycon many, many times, they offered me a product from their extensive line for writing about it again. I jumped at that chance. I’m also using my own referral link so I can build up credit for my next chicken purchase. You can do the same thing by referring your own friends! Just grab your own referral link after signing up through my link to be notified of sales in your area! And, there’s an awesome chicken event starting right away with many new locations!
I was purchasing chicken in bulk long before I’d ever heard of Zaycon Foods. It just works for me. It works for my style of meal preparation. It also works for my style of budgeting.
Meat is generally the most expensive part of our meals. (And I learned fairly soon after Hubby and I got married that he wasn’t a big fan of meatless dinners.) When I was a kid, my mother passed on the tip to stock up on meat whenever I found it for less than $2 per pound. Buy enough at that price to last until the next good sale.
I find it bizarre that $2/lb is still the price I watch out for thirty years later. I almost never find any kind of beef for that price anymore, but I do find boneless, skinless chicken breasts for that price when I’m watching carefully.
When it’s on sale, I buy as much as I can afford in my budget and then divide it up to freeze for individual meals. Pre-Zaycon, I would generally buy about 10-20 pounds at a time. I also started pre-cooking some of the chicken and freezing it that way to make future meal prep go more quickly. The more success I had, the more I tried to buy at one time.
Things I love about purchasing in bulk:
- The more I purchase at one time, the longer I can go without needing to search for sales. With Zaycon, I am usually good until their next chicken sale and my reminder for that comes through my email.
- Even though trimming and bagging and pre-cooking a LOT of chicken at once takes a LOT of time and energy on the day I do it, it eliminates SO much time and energy out of my daily cooking routine. When I don’t have to trim chicken (or even cook it when I use my pre-cooked chicken!), I’m more willing to make dinner and I can make it very quickly with significantly less mess.
- Getting a LOT of chicken all at once, even at a good price, can be a challenge for the budget in that moment, but it means I’m not spending money on chicken at all for a long time. Not needing to buy chicken allows me to stock up on other items when they go on sale. Then, having plenty of pasta or beans or frozen veggies already in the cabinet or freezer means I can spend a big chunk of the budget on chicken the next time I need to make a bulk purchase. It’s the good kind of endless cycle.
Because this was already my kitchen style, I was immediately intrigued when I learned that I could get 40 lbs at a time at a good price from Zaycon.
Zaycon is increasing the number of “events” and the areas where they will happen. And they’re offering chicken for 1.69/lb, which is a GREAT price for boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I have been very pleased with the quality every single time I’ve purchased. AND, while I’ll love it if you sign up as my referral, you need to refer your own friends with YOUR own referral link! Through June 30th, first time buyers will result in a $5 credit for the person who referred them! The Zaycon referral program is ALWAYS awesome since the referrer gets a $1 credit every time their referral makes a purchase (not just the first time like other programs), but this makes it extra amazing!
Don’t wait, though. I know from experience that Zaycon events do sell out. It’s also worth it to go ahead and get on their email list to be sure you are the first to know about future events in your area.
I am so sorry to say that it seems Zaycon has gone out of business. I say “seems” because the information I’ve seen says they’ve “suspended” operations and I don’t fully understand what is happening. I’m so so sad about this since this will change how our family keeps our freezer stocked with meat. We’ve been ordering almost all of our chicken, bacon, and shrimp for them for more than five years. If you had ordered recently, I recommend that you call your credit card company or bank (for debit cards) to see what can be done. I’ve heard many people have had success doing this.
Sign up for their email list here.
If you’re confused how this all works, don’t worry! I have a ba-jillion posts that will help you understand:
How I trim and package 40 lbs of chicken at once.
How to Shred Lots Of Chicken in Seconds With No Carpal Tunnel Pain! (also includes links to recipes in which I use shredded chicken)
How to place an order through Zaycon.
How a Zaycon pickup works (This one is from when I picked up bacon, but the process is the same for chicken.)
Do you purchase chicken or other meat in bulk?
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--Nony
While I haven’t started buying chicken in bulk, I have been prepping and freezing it as you describe and my husband has commented multiple times that he really loves this solution! He’ll take a bag of frozen shredded chicken out of the freezer and put it in the fridge and use it in his lunches.
Dana, I want to send you another big thank you for your container podcast. After having pretty good success getting our 7.5 year old twin girls to corral their Barbie stuff into a 5-drawer plastic bin, I bought another bin this weekend so we could start to corral all the OTHER bits and pieces they have strewn across every flat surface of the house that I am constantly frustrated by. I put them up to the challenge to clear off all the surfaces and use those bins (2 drawers each, plus one drawer for shared stuff), and sure enough they did a really good job! We reiterated that that’s the container they have to work with… if the drawers are full and there is more stuff, it’s going to have to go (donate or trash). We still have more work to do, but this was a really positive start! It’s time to start training them to winnow out the crap that clogs up their lives so that they can practice now (and hopefully improve my sanity!)
THANK YOU!
Oh, I love hearing this, Nancy!!!
Right now Kroger has whole chickens on sale for 88 cents a pound. Stock up and save while you can.
I purchased 5 lbs of burger and wanted to cook it all at once, splitting it after.
After looking into the hungry eyes of three boys I decided to cook separate so they didn’t think it was all for tacos.
I still love the method!
Thanks lady! I just ordered 80 pounds of chicken via your link. 🙂
Wahoo!!!
$2/lb is my bench mark for chicken breast also. I watch out for $1 or less for legs and thighs though. pork i will buy if it’s less than $3/ lb, and i try to get beef at less than $4. i will stock up on NY Strip though if it’s anything below $6/lb… that happened a number of times at my local grocery store last summer, i’m hoping for similar deals this summer… fingers crossed!
I agree on all these. I can often get bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts for almost $1 a lb, though with Zaycon in the freezer, I don’t even look for that often. But I do like to grab some for chicken soup when it’s less than $1 a lb.
I just read your “what works for you” post before I read this. I got all excited about buying chicken in bulk, then remembered how awful I am about remembering to take meat out of the freezer. After the last time we threw hundreds of dollars of frozen meat away following some disaster like someone forgetting to close the freezer door, I vowed never to buy meat in bulk again. It simply doesn’t work for me! :). Glad I read your other post first. Lol!
Yay for know what works (and what doesn’t)!!
I did it! I finally did it! After conducting an enlightening and somewhat disastrous price comparison on fresh bone-in chicken breasts from my local market, I discovered that the amount of nastiness that needed to be discarded from that purchase was more than HALF of the weight of what I purchased, effectively doubling its price. That made Foster Farms fresh chicken from Costco a better deal, although still more than I want to pay. I can’t even get FROZEN chicken breasts from Costco for $1.69/pound, so Zaycon was a no-brainer. It was a lot to shell out for one kind of meat at a time, but I’ve got almost a month to figure out how much I want to freeze whole/pre-cooked, already in a recipe, etc., and I can’t wait to try this out for myself! I used your referral link, of course. Hopefully some of my friends will now use mine. 🙂
Any chance you know of something like this in Canada?
Specifically in Nova Scotia?
We love boneless, skinless chicken thighs for most of our meals, but finding them at a bargain price can be difficult. Any advice?
I don’t buy those, but with any specific kind of meat, just watch all your local grocery flyers, specifically checking the front page. When they do go on sale, get as much as you can afford in your budget, and then pay attention to how soon they go on sale again. You’ll eventually get the rhythm of the sales and know how much you need to buy and freeze to make it through to the next sale!