Pretty scary how many people get fooled by "premium" branding. Think about what made you think that Boars Head was "premium". Was there any evidence that their meats were higher than average quality, that didn't ultimately come from the company itself? Or was it all their product positioning, price, what stores they were found in and so on (in other words, Marketing).
Compared to other brands available in the supermarket, my family finds that Boar's Head deli meats consistently taste better. There is something "cheap" that I find hard to quantify in the taste of generic grocery branded deli meats.
I'm not educated enough to know what the difference is here, but I don't think the fact that Boar's Head costs more is entirely a marketing device.
> There is something "cheap" that I find hard to quantify in the taste of generic grocery branded deli meats.
They tend to be watery and under seasoned. I can only assume it’s to make them as inoffensive as possible to accommodate the widest possible audience - but there’s no character to cheap deli meat, no striking taste.
To my unsophisticated palate, Boar's Head tastes like it has less filler. Will never purchase their product ever again. The findings were so egregious, it makes my blood boil.
Not to discount your experience, but taste is so context sensitive and subjective that just believing that you're consuming a higher quality product is often enough to make it "taste better". There's a great Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode that illustrates this phenomenon for fancy water[1].
Yup, that's completely true. But as somebody who typically prefers to buy "cheap" brands, and is usually completely satisfied by them, the fact that I experience such a wide gulf between Boar's Head and other brands makes me think it's not a marketing mind trick.
Ryan - You aren't wrong, but I'd note that in my local grocery stores, it's generic brands and your Smithfield / Oscar Mayer / Hormel in the cold case. You find Boar's Head at the in-store deli, sliced to order, and priced higher. So the illusion of premium here extends beyond marketing dress.
I honestly thought Boars Head tasted better and offered more variety than other brands, but then again I never did a blind taste test. It could have all been affected by their marketing. They do a LOT to separate their products from other deli meat - even down to having separate displays and even cooler units.
Did you ever try the previous brands available at your grocer before Boars Head cornered the market? For my local grocers it was an immediate reduction in variety, increase in price and equal-to-worse quality. Nothing about that move was better for the customer.
Where I live, both of the two major supermarket chains (Publix x 3, Kroger x 3) with stores within an epsilon of my house feature Boar's Head next to their house brands. Other than the odd Food Depot there are no other grocery corp brands within probably 25 miles.
I have historically frequently bought Boar's Head meats from the deli counter because I can get them sliced prosciutto thin and they have the texture to support that. And the overall flavor experience when buried in a creatively built sandwich is "not terrible". Absolutely revolting when compared directly against handmade pastrami, ham, corned beef etc., but not bad in a sandwich.
However: in the last year I have noticed Boarshead moving more of their cured charcuterie meats into "nitrate free", which is a lie, they use celery instead, but of course that degrades the texture and flavor a bit.
So now I just buy the house brand meats when I'm slumming, and make my own pastrami, ham, and corned beef from time to time. For two olds a 5lb batch of cured meat is a lot. Like 6-12 months. But homemade charcuterie is so astoundingly good.
So no, I don't consider Boar's Head a premium brand. At least, not anymore. I smell enshittification at work.
Also, everybody should have the chance to try out real charcuterie.
It is expensive to go blind in on buying artisanal charcuterie without knowing how to optimize for what you want. Kinda like California cheese. Good, but... $30/lb for cheddar?
I have eaten at restaurants that have "charcuterie boards" but if they're reasonable in price... you get what you pay for. An easy out is to put "prosciutto" on the board as the prize. Quotes because there's orders of magnitudes difference in price and flavor quality across "prosciutto" analogues.
My recommendation is, if you are at all adventurous in the kitchen, is to buy a copy of Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn's "Charcuterie", and just start making stuff that you think looks interesting. I have had quite few dinners where I contributed stuff out of that book and people raved. Nothing special about me, I just followed the recipes. It's an extraordinary cookbook. The vegetarian rilletes are great but I've had people swoon over the duck rilletes that started with me and a dusty farm and a couple of ducks (still quacking). (The book assumes you have duck parts, not live ducks.)
In the olden tymes I would say drop me a line if you needed help/more advice but in this weird world that doesn't seems to work anymore.
