Where to Buy the Best Bacon

Figuring out where to buy the best bacon can be a hard process (believe me, I know). There are a lot of choices out there to find the best bacon to buy, but I will break it down for you and help you to understand your options for buying the best bacon.

Below I list the three main sources a person can use to buy the best bacon, and then I explore the pros and cons of each.

A. Grocery Stores

Grocery stores often sell many different brands of bacon, but typically the bacon they sell is mass produced. Some people will say, "so what? All bacon is awesome. Bacon is bacon." Not so fast, I say! While much of the bacon that is sold in grocery stores tastes the same, the truth is that grocery store bacon is often not the best bacon to buy, although it is often the most affordable.

If you are very price-conscious and not interested knowing where you can truly find the best bacon to buy, then stop reading and take a trip to your local grocery store. But if you truly want to find where to buy the best bacon, then pleas continue reading.

"When you have been to the summit, the bottom just doesn't seem as impressive."

Pros: Lower cost, immediately available.

Cons: Mass-produced, product could have been sitting on the shelf for weeks or even months, typically very high fat content and little meat, shrivels 50% or more when cooking.

 

B. Butcher Shops/Meat Markets/Farms

There are a lot of butcher shops where you can buy bacon all across the United States. It's one of the things that makes our country so great. Butcher shops are often a great place to buy bacon, but you will find a variety of styles, flavors and prices.

Some butcher shops put a lot of emphasis on crafting high quality bacon while others sell it simply because it gives their store a full range of products. I've seen prices range from $2.99/lb. up to $25/lb. for butcher shop bacon.

Personally, I like to choose butcher shops that both have a nice wide variety of bacon and bacon flavors, sell bacon with a good amount of meat on it, and that have won awards for their bacon. These are often the best places to buy bacon because you know you are getting a high quality product.

If a butcher is taking the time to enter his products in an award show it means he is committed to excellence in his craft and is willing to put himself out in front of his peers to be judged on the quality of his products. Choose only butcher shops that are renowned for their products.

Pros: Fresh, medium price, meatier, can have it sliced to order.

Cons: Quality not always consistent from butcher to butcher, the best places can be very out of the way, hard to get to locations in rural America.

 

C. Online

Buying bacon online can be a great place to buy bacon. It is easy, convenient, and doesn't require you to make a trip out of your way to some far flung place to get award-winning bacon.

There are many places to buy bacon online, but just like anything else you buy it pays to do your research. Some butcher shops sell directly online which is awesome, but their sites are often challenging to navigate and shipping costs extra.

Other online stores specialize in selling kitschy bacon gifts and offer their own brand of bacon. Personally, I would never trust it. It is highly unlikely that this kind of bacon is subject to the same rigorous review as award-winning butcher shop bacon. It is usually a white label bacon and you won't know who actually makes it. It is usually a large producer that is making bacon on large scale, so you really aren't getting a special and unique product like your smaller butcher shops.

Ordering bacon online is often not cheap and can feel too expensive. Look for a store that offers free shipping as those are the ones offering greater value and are less expensive than stores offering lower cost products with added shipping charges when you check out.

If you are price-sensitive and feel like you are getting ripped off by online bacon prices, then buying it online isn't for you.

However, if you appreciate the quality of hard to find, award-winning, premium foods, then I can show you exactly where to find the best bacon to buy. I've spent countless months traveling across the country, taste-testing hundred of pounds of bacon, and I have built partnerships with several family-owned small meat markets to build a bacon delivery service.

I've taken all the guesswork out of figuring out who sells the best bacon. The best bacon you can buy is only a click away. Click here to buy the best bacon.

Pros: Easy ordering, no traveling, vetted and reviewed. Cons: Expensive to ship, some online stores do not have quality control.