You may or may not know that when it comes to me and eating, I am considered a picky eater. Which is totally WRONG I mean everyone has things they don’t eat, and then to top it all of I have a slew of food allergies and then some items that I don’t eat for religious reasons. As far as meat, I only eat Chicken and Beef, so when I got the chance to review 40lbs of boneless skinless chicken breast from Zaycon Foods, I was BEYOND excited! (I even wrote a pre-review post that you can find here“Upcoming Review: Zaycon Foods Chicken”)
I am all about eating meat as close to being natural as possible! My family has for years had their own beef that we have processed on our own, and my dad also is a deer hunter, so even though I will only eat it when he makes jerky out of it, I have in the past enjoyed that as well. I like knowing that the meat doesn’t have a bunch of unnecessary junk in it! I also enjoy the more fresh flavor that you get as well.
What you can expect from the chicken:
When you get the boneless, skinless chicken breast from Zaycon you are getting fresh, never frozen, 100% natural chicken! I know a problem that I personally have with buying chicken at the grocery store, other than the price (which I will get to in a minute) Is the issue that in most circumstances you are paying for “Broth Solution” and in a lot of cases if you do weigh your chicken separate from your packaging you will find that you are paying for that Styrofoam/plastic and that paper that sticks to the back as well! I know that I would prefer to pay for meat and not waste! Plus, “Broth solution”just doesn’t sound like something that you REALLY need in your chicken in my opinion. I like to know exactly WHAT is in my food when at all possible.
PRICE compared to what I generally buy:
As far as PRICE , I generally only get to buy chicken a couple of times a year when our grocery store has a awesome sale where you buy 5 bags (about 1.5lbs each) of tenderloins for about $20 bucks or so( it is kind of a buy 2 and get 3 free kind of deal!) and I really have to stock up when they have that particular deal. At this rate, and sticking with how much it would have costed with Zaycon, I would only be able to get about 15 bags of chicken and I would only be getting about 22lbs of chicken. The price on sale would have been about 60 bucks. For 40 lbs with Zaycon it is around 75!
I hope that made some sort of sense? I was trying to do math and that isn’t something I am very good at on the fly! Also, that is on sale, not at a normal price! So even in my math deprived mind, I can tell you ordering from Zaycon you end up saving a lot either way! This is for frozen chicken as well, not FRESH, so that is a difference as well! Zaycon brings the meat from the farm straight to you, and cuts out all the middle man mark up so to speak as well!
Ordering with Zaycon
It is so very simple! You simply go to their website and register and look for the events in your area that you are interested in! When you find what you are looking for you can pick your amount,etc and then enter your payment info. You can then print out your order from there, or wait until you get your confirmation email and print it. I wasn’t asked for mine, they only asked me for my name, but it is a good idea in general to have a copy or at least have access to it on your phone just in case!
Picking Up Your Order:
My mom went with me to pick up my order, because she had ordered some as well! Also, the time of day that it was I wouldn’t have otherwise had a way to get it, because I don’t drive and david was at work! It was closer to her house than mine as well, so it all worked out that way!
We were one of the first people to arrive, and we were about 10 minutes early. We quickly saw the sign to alert us where to pick up the chicken. While we were telling them our names and everything they were lining my moms car trunk with Plastic (she was impressed by the way) and loading the chicken into the car. They were very friendly as well!
I also noticed our Local news was there, and one of the anchors. I should have hopped out and seen if they would have talked to me! I never could find the video where they were there though, because I had totally hoped to include it in this post even though I wasn’t in it! I still wish I could have got interviewed and plugged my site lol.
After the Pick up:
We knew our chicken was fresh and hadn’t been frozen, but my mom and I took a quick 5 minute trip into the thrift shop nearby, and on our way out my mom smashed her hand a little bit in the door! Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad because we had 80lbs of chicken to work up! I don’t do well with knives or raw meat either lol.
When we got home you should have saw me trying to carry my 40lb box of chicken up her steps onto her porch. We are lucky there isn’t a video clip of that lol.
Processing
We spent about an hour processing the first batch of chicken (mine) so we could get it ready in time for dinner and so that David & I could be able to go home afterwards. We were really shocked at how big the chicken breasts were. I was pretty shocked that my moms ceramic knife cut them too! I put My & David’s into bags of various strips of chicken ranging from around 3-5 pieces. I am not talking about SMALL pieces either! At first I was trying to put one breast in each bag, and for the most part I did, but I did get behind! I have made out of the various size of bags and even on our small bags they are enough for me and david and they have a little bit of left overs.
The breasts are in 4 bags of varying weight down inside of the box, and I do not believe mine were sealed which is common!
I ended up with about 33 bags of chicken (in other words I divided that out as close to a lb a bag without a scale as I could!)
We quickly left after we ate to be able to get home and get that chicken put in our freezer as possible. I ended up rotating it in my deep freezer several times because that is something that I know helps it all to get froze evenly and that way you don’t end up with some spoiled meat! Especially with so much meat and the thickness. I had a couple of bags that didn’t want to freeze but they were some of the larger ones, and I finally got them to do so!
My mom even processed some of hers by canning it, FYI.
Final Thoughts
I have really enjoyed using my meat, even though I have to say we haven’t used as much as I expected of it lol. I think I am trying to “make it last ” till next time, because that is something that I am used to! We have had salsa chicken and BBQ chicken made in the crockpot and they have been awesome.
Zaycon Foods has many other products including hamburger, fruits, and I think they have steaks on the horizon. I was happy to be able to get the chicken this go around because it won’t be around again to the spring! I look forward to getting to check out more of their products in the future!
[…] I got the chance to review for the Amazing folks at Zaycon Foods! You can check out my review of Zaycons Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts! This time around my review is about their new partnership with Chicken Soup For The Soul! Check […]