Why does nobody sell sous vide meat?

[Shalmanese]

For Sous Vide preparations that take more than 24 hours like short ribs, brisket, shank etc, I'm wondering why nobody has thought to sell them at a retail level. Even if you own a Sous Vide machine, there would be times when you would like SV meat now instead of 2 days later and it would be great to be able to go to store and pick up a pouch. Like the pre-marinated meat at the meat counter, SV meat could come in a number of common flavor combos or plain if you intend to augment later.

And because it's pre-cooked, you don't even need a SV machine to enjoy it, just a method of warming it up without overcooking it. I know there have been various aborted attempts to sell SV prepared food for decades, but I'm wondering what caused all of those attempts to fail and whether it could be viable now.

[pastrygirl]

I think it could be viable, one of the projects my boss talks about trying to put together is heat & serve meals featuring SV meats. There probably needs to be a bit more education of the general public regarding the safety of sous vide and that it is perfectly OK to crisp the skin on the SV chicken breast before serving (seems like a common misperception is that sous vide meats have no texture and are always served straight from the bag). I think the flavorful marinades and spices would be the greater selling point rather than the cooking method. I doubt many people find themselves craving some variety of SV meat regardless of flavor, so you need to have something that makes it more delicious than they would cook at home, PLUS the tender juiciness of sous vide and convenience of boil in the bag reheating. Local health departments may make it more difficult to start this sort of business, requiring a HACCP plan at least.

[JBailey]

Have you looked at the products of Cuisine Solutions, who may be the earliest proponent and developer of sous vide cooking?

[Snadra]

I'm sure I saw pre-cooked lamb shanks at Franklins last winter - I'm not sure if they were cooked sous vide, but they were definitely vacuum packed on the shelf. I never picked them up though, mainly because I always avoid marinated meats, and in my head these were in the same category. The brand was either Cargill or Hormel - neither of which I regularly see on the supermarket shelf here.

[IndyRob]

I had the impression that sous vide was adopted by commercial producers long before it hit fine dining. But I may have that confused with molecular gastronomy techniques in general.

After some searching I found an abstract that does seem to indicate that sous vide is widely used in commercial food service (including products for hospitals).

I suspect that it's just not being advertised as such. 'Meat Cooked for 72 Hours in a Vacuum' is probably not great a marketing message (plus, 72 hours is a lot of time and energy for commercial producers). Even many chefs who've used sous vide have seemed reluctant to admit to it.

But I do think there is an opening for 'fresh sous vide', or more generally, just freshly cooked, take away heat-and-eat. I was talking to someone who is a manager in a supermarket recently and he said that, by far, the most profitable area of his store was the salad bar.

I think that if someone were to expand that to a variety prepared foods that just need to be assembled and lightly heated, they could do well for themselves. Put it in an office building atrium and do donuts, danishes and bagels in the morning, a salad/sandwich bar in the afternoon, and take-home around quitting time.

[ScoopKW]

I can't speak for other states but in Nevada, a HACCP plan needs to be on file to do sous vide commercially. Perhaps liability/insurance/paperwork is just too much for anyone to want to bring a product to market?

[Broken English]

There's a company in Sydney that does pork and beef ribs, chicken wings and breast, pork belly and lamb shanks.

I can't remember the brand off hand, but the product is not too bad, except there's not a skerrick of seasoning on the meat, so it needs a bit of work to make it taste of something.

[Broken English]

It just came to me, the brand was Ribs and Roast (their website no longer seems to work though), and they also have (had?) a line of different roasts cooked SV.

The problem with these, other than the lack of seasoning, is reheating them to the right temperature without SV equipment. If you can't do that, then the point of them is lost, and you may as well have just done it conventionally.

My guess is that's why few companies are doing it on a large scale. They figure if you have SV equipment, then you're already going to be doing it yourself, and there's not that much point in them spending time and money for something there may not be a huge market for.