Thirty years behind a supermarket case
They work on that tray for an hour before you ever see it.
The Meat Case Manual. 181 pages. How to read any tray, in any store, and know what it’s worth before you look at the sticker.
$37 once · 60-day money-back · yours forever
Launch price. It goes back to $59 on Sunday night, your time. --d --h --m --s left.
I’m not sending you to a fancy butcher shop. I’m going to teach you to walk up to the same case you already walk up to, look at the tray for about twenty seconds, and know what the store did to it and what it’s really worth.
About the money, before you ask
Every price in this book is checked against that same store’s own precut tray. Not a boutique shop across town. Same store, both ways, on the same day.
And I printed the stores where buying the whole piece loses — Sam’s Club, H‑E‑B and Publix, by name. Three of the six stores I checked say buy the tray, not the whole piece. I left all three in.
No Costco near you? Doesn’t matter. The Tray Read works on a tray, not on a chain.
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The whole thing, in one line
One book, three sheets, thirty-seven dollars.
You already know how to shop. Nobody ever showed you what happens to the meat between the truck and the case. That’s the book.
Launch price. It goes back to $59 on Sunday night. --d --h --m --s left.
What you get
- The Meat Case Manual26 chapters, 181 pages, illustrated $47
- The Case CardThe nine-point Tray Read on one printable page for your pocket $14
- Twelve Questions for the Man Behind the CounterWhat to ask, what the answer tells you, and when to walk away $19
- The Freezer SheetWhat to buy big, and what it really costs after trim $16
$37 once · 60-day money-back · yours forever
60 days. If it doesn’t help you, email me. The $37 comes back the same day, and you keep the book.
What they did before you got there
Nobody is stealing from you. They’re charging you for the cutting.
That’s the part people get wrong. The store isn’t a crook. The store is a business that pays a man to stand at a table and turn one big cheap piece into a lot of small expensive ones. Then it charges you for his time, plus a bit more for the tray, the film, the pad and the sticker.
I was that man for thirty years. Here’s what happens to a tray before it hits the glass.
- 01
The cap comes off. The best-eating muscle on a ribeye gets pulled and sold back to you as its own item, at a higher price per pound. You buy the same steak twice.
- 02
The ribeye gets cut on a wedge. Angle the knife and every steak weighs more than it looks. The tray still says the same per-pound price.
- 03
Needles get run through it. Blade tenderized. It says so on the label in letters you need glasses for, and it changes how you have to cook it.
- 04
The sticker goes down over the bad part. Not always on purpose. But it lands where it lands, and it’s never over the pretty side.
- 05
The grade badge is borrowed. Choice, Prime — that was given to a whole carcass in a cooler, by a man who never saw your steak. Grade is not quality. It’s a guess about a cow.
- 06
The family pack is thin. More pieces, less thickness. Thin cuts go to shoe leather in a hot pan and there’s nothing you can do about it at the stove.
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The math, with the losing rows left in
Six stores. Same store, both ways. Three of them say don’t bother.
People tell me the math doesn’t math. They’re right to say it. Most of the time the man doing the comparing puts a cheap whole piece against a fancy shop’s steak and calls the difference savings. That’s a trick, and you can smell it.
So here’s how I did it. One picanha — the sirloin cap — checked in August 2026. For each store I wrote down two prices: what that store charges for the whole piece, and what that same store charges for its own precut version on the same shelf. No other shops. No wishful thinking.
| Store | Whole piece | Its own precut | Who wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walmart | $10.74/lb | $13.44–$13.94/lb top sirloin |
Whole wins — 21–23% cheaper |
| Costco | $9.99/lb | $9.99/lb cap-off steak |
A wash — same money either way |
| Sam’s Club | $10.37/lb | $9.97/lb top sirloin steaks |
Buy the tray — the whole piece costs more |
| H‑E‑B | $12.49/lb | $11.99/lb top sirloin |
Buy the tray — the whole piece costs more |
| Publix | $14.39–$15.19/lb cap steaks |
$13.99–$14.39/lb top sirloin |
Buy the tray — the cap costs more |
| Kroger | Doesn’t carry it | $14.99–$15.99/lb top sirloin |
Nothing to compare — and the highest-priced plain sirloin of the six |
- The Costco numbers come from a shopper-run price tracker, not from Costco’s own posted price. Treat them as close, not exact.
- The Publix and Kroger numbers come from a delivery app, and delivery prices usually run above what you’d pay standing in the store.
- Prices move every week. These are the numbers I had in front of me in August 2026.
The part a salesman would cut out
Three of those six say buy the tray, not the whole piece. I printed them anyway. That’s chapter 11, and it’s called Where Cutting It Yourself Loses.
Go and check your own store’s two prices this Saturday and see which one you’re in. Whole piece, per pound. Its own precut, per pound. Write both down. It takes a minute and it’s free, and you’ll know more about your store than most people ever will.
Why it feels this bad right now
It’s not in your head. The country’s cattle herd is down to 86.2 million head — the smallest since 1951. In April 2026 all-fresh beef hit a record $9.64 a pound. Fewer cattle, same number of people who want a steak on Saturday. That’s the whole story of your receipt.
I can’t make beef cheap. Nobody can. What I can do is stop you paying more on top of that than you have to.
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The method
The Tray Read: nine checks, about twenty seconds.
This is the spine of the book. Nine things you look at, in the order a butcher’s eye actually goes. Not the order that sounds tidy — the order your eye already wants to use once somebody tells you what to look for.
- Color
- Marbling
- Which muscles are in it
- Thickness
- Which way the grain runs
- Liquid in the tray
- Fat cap and seams
- The per-pound price
- The date
It works on a tray, so it works anywhere there is a tray. Costco, Walmart, Publix, H‑E‑B, Kroger, the little store in town, the Mexican market with the good prices. The chain doesn’t matter. The tray tells you the truth.
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Everything in the book
Eight parts. Twenty-six chapters. 181 pages.
Some parts have five chapters and some have two. That’s because that’s how much there was to say, not because I was filling a page count.
You don’t have to do all of it. Most folks read Part Two, run the Tray Read on their next shop, and leave the rest for later. The rest keeps.
Part One — What They Did Before You Got There
The tray was worked on for an hour before it reached the case. Here is every hand that touched it.
- Seven Things I’d Never Buy From the Meat Case
- The Grade on That Label Was Never Given to Your Steak
- They Put the Sticker Over the Bad Part
- Blade Tenderized: The Needles You Never See
Part Two — Reading the Tray
Nine checks, in the order a butcher’s eye goes. Twenty seconds a tray.
- The Twenty-Second Tray Read
- Where the Cap Went, and Why Your Ribeye Is a Wedge
- Marbling: What’s Fat, What’s Water, What’s Just Wet
- The Family Pack Is a Thin-Cut Trap
- Yellow Stickers: How to Work the Markdown Rack
Part Three — What It’s Actually Worth
Same store, both ways, with the losing cases printed.
- True Cost of a Ribeye: The Same Store, Both Ways
- Where Cutting It Yourself Loses
- The Per-Pound Tag Is the Only Number That Tells the Truth
Part Four — The Cuts They Price Wrong
Same muscle, same eating, priced off a line somebody drew on a chart.
- The $5 Cut That Eats Like a Ribeye
- 93% of Shoppers Walk Straight Past This One
- Denver, Flat Iron, and the Rest of the Chuck
- Picanha: The Cap They Sell You as a Roast
Part Five — Grain, Not Grade
Tenderness is not quality. Tenderness is where it sat on the animal, and which way you cut it.
- Tri-Tip, Flap and Skirt: the Grain Is the Whole Game
- Pork and Chicken: The Same Trick, Cheaper
Part Six — Bringing Home the Big Piece
You bought the whole thing. Now it’s on your counter and nobody told you what to do next.
- Your First Whole Primal, Start to Finish
- Now It’s on Your Counter: Cutting a Chuck Roll
- The Trim Is Not Waste
Part Seven — The Freezer Is the Bank
A full freezer bought in the right month is money you already spent at last year’s price.
- Seal It, Date It, and What It’s Worth in March
- What to Buy in Which Month
Part Eight — Making It Eat Like Money
You did not save money if it comes out like shoe leather.
- Salt It the Night Before
- Never Grill It Again: The Old Butcher’s Way
- If You Only Remember Five Things
And three sheets you print
The Case Card — the nine-point Tray Read on one page, sized to fold into a pocket. Take it to the store until you don’t need it.
Twelve Questions for the Man Behind the Counter — what to ask, what each answer tells you, and the red flags that mean walk away.
The Freezer Sheet — what to buy big, what it really costs a pound after trim, how to seal it and how long it keeps.
$37 once · 60-day money-back · yours forever
What people say under the videos
These aren’t reviews. They’re the reason I wrote it.
Every one of these was left by somebody watching a butcher talk about the meat case. Word for word, with the number of people who agreed.
“I’m a cheapo! I remember the days of $5.99 lb. $14.99 is blasphemy!”
“I swear, the single best job I ever had was a butcher’s assistant when I was working through college. What I learned there has saved me a ton of money over the years.”
“$160.00 plus for a slab of meat isn’t cheap for most people.”
“Not always about saving a few bucks. Cutting steaks exactly how you like them is worth it.”
“This is true!!! When I was in HS in 1990 I worked as a clean up boy for the meat dept at Publix. My boss the meat dept manager used to always take home chuck eyes. So I started grabbing them”
“Just bought a whole Chuck eye roll. Now I need a tutorial on how to cut it!”
“Truer words have never been spoken. This man knows his stuff. Listen and learn how to buy beef cuts at no extra cost.”
And here’s the one that got the book written
“You need to compare the price to Costco pre-cut Ribeye and ground beef and beef tallow. The price difference will be much less.”
Doug P. · Washington · 263 likes
Wayne: He’s right, and that’s exactly why every price in this book is the same store both ways, and why chapter 11 is called Where Cutting It Yourself Loses.
These are comments left on the channel, not reviews from people who bought the book. The book went up this week. As buyers write in and tell me what happened at their store, their notes go here, with their name and their state, the same as these.
$37 once · 60-day money-back · yours forever
Who’s telling you this
I’m Wayne Truitt.
“I’m Wayne Truitt. Thirty years cutting meat for a living, most of it behind a supermarket case — so I know exactly what the store does to that tray before you ever see it.”
I wasn’t a chef and I’m not a food guy. I was the man in the white coat with the wet apron, in at five, breaking boxes down before the doors opened. I cut what the boss told me to cut and I priced it the way the sheet said to price it. None of it was crooked. All of it was designed around a shopper who doesn’t know what he’s looking at.
You can learn what he’s looking at. It takes about a week of paying attention, and after that you never go back.
This is everything I teach on the channel, in order, in one book. On there it comes out a piece at a time, in whatever order I feel like that week. Here it’s sorted, the prices are checked and printed, and the losing cases are printed too.
$37 once · 60-day money-back · yours forever
The deal, once more
$37 once. No subscription. Yours forever.
There’s nothing to renew and nothing to cancel. You pay one time, you download the file, and it sits on your phone or your computer for as long as you want it. If I update the prices in it, you get the new one free.
Launch price. Back to $59 on Sunday night. --d --h --m --s left.
- The Meat Case Manual26 chapters, 181 pages, illustrated$47
- The Case CardThe nine-point Tray Read on one printable page for your pocket$14
- Twelve Questions for the Man Behind the CounterWhat to ask, what the answer tells you, and when to walk away$19
- The Freezer SheetWhat to buy big, and what it really costs after trim$16
$37 once · 60-day money-back · yours forever
Here’s how the guarantee works. You have 60 days. If it doesn’t help you, email me at orders@themeatcase.com and say so. You don’t have to explain. The $37 goes back the same day, and you keep the book and the three sheets.
Payment is handled by Stripe. Visa · Mastercard · American Express · Discover · Apple Pay · Google Pay. I never see your card number.
Fair questions
The things people ask me first.
Yes. A lot of it is, and it stays free. I’m not taking anything down.
What you’re paying for is the whole thing in order, in one place, with the numbers checked and printed — including the numbers that go against me. On the channel it comes out a piece at a time, in whatever order I feel like that week, and there’s no price sheet at the end. This is the same teaching, sorted, with the work done. That’s the $37.
Then don’t go to one. I know people who drive three and four hours to reach one, and I’m not asking you to do that.
The Tray Read works on a tray, not on a chain. Every chapter tells you what to do when the cut isn’t in the case — what to ask for, what to take instead, and when to just walk away. I checked six chains for this book and three of them say buy the precut tray. Yours might be one of them. Knowing that is still money in your pocket.
You don’t need either one. The freezer is one part out of eight, and it gives you the cheap way too — freezer paper, tape and a marker still works the same as it did in 1975.
Buy a sealer later if you ever want one. Or never. The other seven parts don’t care.
Only you can answer that, and I’m not going to sit here and promise you a number.
What I’ll tell you is it’s $37 one time, there’s nothing to renew, and if it doesn’t help you, you email me inside 60 days and the money goes back the same day. And if this week is tight, don’t buy it. Watch the channel. It’s free, and it always will be.
No. It’s a PDF. You download it after you pay and it’s yours — read it on your phone, your tablet or your computer.
If you’d rather have paper, print it. It’s laid out to print clean on a home printer, and the three sheets are made to be printed and carried. A lot of people print the Case Card and leave the rest on the phone.
Then take your money back. 60 days, same day, keep the book.
I’d also like to hear which store it was, because I keep checking prices and I keep updating the book, and buyers get the updates free. Some stores are just bad. Knowing yours is one of them is worth something on its own.
The download link comes to your email from orders@themeatcase.com once the payment goes through. If it’s not there after a few minutes, look in your spam folder — that’s where it usually is. Still nothing, email me and I’ll send it by hand.
Volume Two is the whole primal book — every big piece, bag to freezer, step by step, because that’s the thing people ask me for most.
After that, The Freezer Year: a twelve-month buying calendar. What goes on sale when, what it should cost, and what to put away each month.
People who buy the Manual hear about both first and get a discount on them.
$37 once · 60-day money-back · yours forever
Last thing
You’re going to walk past that case again on Saturday.
And the Saturday after that, and the one after that. Every trip, you either pay the store to do twenty seconds of looking for you, or you do it yourself.
That’s the whole book. Twenty seconds of looking, and knowing what you’re looking at. It isn’t clever and it isn’t a secret. It’s just the thing nobody standing behind that counter has time to tell you.
$37 once. 60 days to change your mind. The book stays yours either way.
And whatever you decide about the book — go write down your store’s two prices on Saturday. Whole piece, per pound. Its own precut, per pound. Even that much will tell you something.
$37 once · 60-day money-back · yours forever
Launch price ends Sunday night. --d --h --m --s left.