Frequently ASked Questions

As we gather questions, we will provide the answers. Visit the “Contact” page to ask other unanswered questions.

Q: Why does your spiral honey ham command a price higher than five dollars per pound?

Answer: Most of the hams on the market are 33 to 35% waterweight added. This is not the case with our hand selected hams; we choose to use a ham that taste like hams used to taste: Dry cured the old-fashioned way and hardwood smoked like the hams from the old days. Inboden’s spiral honey ham comes individually gift boxed and makes a great presentation.

These are also available year round with advanced notice.

Further reading on ham: Click Here

Q: Do you have any other hams available?

Answer: Another great choice that we produce is our bone in traditional ham. This is a natural juice ham and contains less than 3% added water, an excellent hardwood smoked ham that proves itself with its taste. The proof is in the hams: the consumer receives a intensified ham flavor and less shrink from out of the oven.

Further reading on ham: Click Here

Q: Why won’t Inboden’s take my order online?

Answer: Inboden’s can be more precise, and the customers will receive better service.
~ Anatomical difficulties
~ Reducing back-and-forth emails
~ We feel that the personalized service should never disappear.

Q: Does Inboden’s age all the beef they serve?

Answer: Yes, in fact Inboden’s ages all of the beef we sell, a minimum of 30 days, before we put a knife to it. There are actually two ways to age beef, wet aging – the way we age beef at Inboden’s and dry aging. Here’s is a great explanation on the difference of wet-aging and dry-aging, “The nearly lost art of the great steak” written by Derrick Riches, posted on About.com.

Q: Where do you advertise your weekly sales, and where can I find your coupons?

Answer:
~ Inboden’s sends our weekly ad direct to your email inbox on late Wednesday or early Thursday morning, sign up at meatplace.com homepage. These sales run Thursday, Friday and Saturday until the end of day.
~ Like us on Facebook.
~ Our marquee On North First Street.
~ The newsprint DeKalb Daily Chronicle and its partner the Midweek.
~ A multitude of direct mail and other print media.
~ Coupons can be found at the Specials and Coupons page.

Q: What are beef grades?

Answer: You can find all kinds of information on beef grades on this link.

Q: How do I get your weekly sales flyer ad?

Answer: The weekly ad is placed in the DeKalb Daily Chronicle and the Midweek papers, on our website at meatplace.com, and also sent out on our Facebook account. If you wish to receive it via email go to meatplace.com and sign up or friend us on Facebook. The sales items are posted on Wednesday nights on our website & our Facebook page. Coupons are also posted on our web site and are usually good for a extended period of time, along with the use of coupons we use various other print media.

Q: Where does your meat come from?

Answer: The greatest majority of our beef is local. Our customers can specifically ask our cutter to request local and they would accommodate the customer’s request. This is also true with our pork and a great amount of our poultry. Our pork comes in two varieties – heritage pigs and commodity pigs, both locally sourced like our beef. For more information on these types of pigs, please visit Pig Roast Pros.

Q: Why don’t you use a number system in your meat department?

Answer:
~ Inboden’s feels that number systems are not effective way to build a personalized customer relationship.
~ We feel that this can be a detriment to the elderly.
~ When running into your neighbor and chatting for a few minutes off to side, you happen to miss your number being called, do you begin the process of starting all the way at the end again?
~ Inboden’s staff is 60 people strong and sometimes we have to call our Calvary to knock the long lines down.
We understand it may feel like baby steps inside of our building sometimes, but we strive to continue a level of service that far exceeds the big box stores. Inboden’s far surpasses the national average of time spent in store shopping for 10 to 15 items.

Q: Do you support organic?

Answer: Inboden’s does support organic. Inboden’s stocks both fresh and fresh frozen organic products. Many times organic produce is at the same price or lower than conventional produce. The same is not true for meats and cheeses.

Q: Is your seafood farm raised or wild?

Answer: Inboden’s seafood is both farm raised and wild when available. During the Salmon runs we ship direct to our store and as for our Farmed Salmon we only source from farms that we know. One farm is in Nova Scotia in an estuary of the Bay of Fundy. The area has the highest tides in the world. This particular farm has tides ranging from 32 to 40 ft. This environment provides for a large water exchange and this large tidal exchange lends itself to very good fish school health, thus eliminating the use of pharma in the raising of the Salmon. Another fishery in Alaska is near the mouth of a river emptying into the Cook Inlet.

Although the tides are not as high as in the Bay of Fundy, there is good tidal exchange and during spring and summer melt off from the mountains creates very large exchange of fresh water and sea water. This farm uses no pharma and gets great color by the use of crab shells in the fish meal, giving this product a great natural red color. We also get Salmon from Scotland and Norway. These farms must meet our standards for farmed fish although these farms use natural carotenoids from algae to get there color into the meat of the Salmon.

Our tilapia is farmed raised in a spring fed lake and just before harvest, the cage booms are brought to the area of the lake that is fed by the spring and allows the fish to purge in the cleanest water 7 to 10 days before harvest. This provides a cleaner, more flavorful fish. Our Chilean sea bass is only bought from suppliers that can provide proof that the harvesters of the sea bass are following international maritime protocols to insure the species is not over fished.

This assures the retailer that the fish is not supplied by pirated fisherman and the fish is harvested at the corrected levels to provide sustainability. Tuna and other species also must meet these criteria. Inboden’s fresh oyster is from certified beds, along with our Prince Edward Island mussels.