Last night was the inaugural Zaycon Foods event for the Tampa area that I have been talking about so much lately. As you can see from the photos below and from the video above, there was quite a crowd on hand when we showed up! Yet for all of the cars, we got through the line surprisingly quick. There were probably about 15 cars in line or so when we showed up, and within less than 10 minutes, they had our cases of chicken loaded into our trunk and we were off!
By the time we ran two quick errands and got home and settled in, it was about 9:15. My husband worked on cutting and trimming 80 lbs of chicken (yes, we did get two cases), which took him into the second half of TLC’s Extreme Couponing’s second season premier show before he finished up. We’re pretty particular about the fat and skin being gone, so we estimated that roughly 10 lbs of our eighty was trimmed off. Still, 70 lbs equals to about $1.70/lb, which is obviously much better than any grocery store! And now 70 lbs – marked with the date 9/28 on the outside – are stocked in our freezers, ready to go.
However, it’s a pretty big mess and a very slimy process. For us? Definitely worth it.
What about you? For those who picked up your chicken last night, did you find it was worth it? What were the pros and cons of purchasing through Zaycon? At one point last night we got a good laugh when my husband wondered out-loud how many kindred spirits he had across the Tampa Bay area who were cutting chicken with him. Care to share your story? Leave a comment and let other readers know what you thought of the whole process. I will also make sure I give feedback to Zaycon as well. Supposedly they’re lining up a beef and/or bacon drop off for their next stop on the east coast.
**AND – if you haven’t signed up to receive Zaycon Foods’ newsletter, you should sign up! They will email you once they are holding an event in your area (they hold events like the one last night across the country and sell discounted chicken breasts, bacon, ground beef and even produce)! To sign up, go HERE.
Thanks for coming to Addicted to Saving! Here’s a little bit about me so you can know who’s behind all these posts!
My name is Liza and I began my money-saving journey in the Spring of 2009 as a way to stretch a limited household income. I had lost my job and my hubby was self-employed. I launched Addicted to Saving in November of 2009 and it has grown by leaps and bounds. Since then, my hubby and I have struggled with the ups and downs of two failed adoptions and are now LOVING being parents to our little man Asher who we brought home from Ethiopia in August of 2013. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to help you save money. My goal is that you will have FUN and become empowered to save more and more money each week..
My 1st delivery is next Tuesday, and I’m in desperate need for some freezer bags. I have a couple of boxes, but I ordered 2 cases as well (not sure what I was thinking). Does anyone know of some really good deals on freezer bags?
Amy – Let me come clean. I actually only had one box of freezer bags in my stockpile! (gasp) I had a $1/2 store and a $1/3 manufacturer coupon so I bought three full price boxes and used my two coupons. Not good savings at all! If I see any deals, I will be sure to post!
This was a wise investment. My husband and I took 2 hours to cut and store 40 pounds of chicken. We prepared bags of chicken for kabobs, fajitas, cutlets and grilling. It was worth the prep work .
80 lbs and that was all it took him! Next time he can come here and do mine. LOL. It took me a good hour or more to go through my 1 box.
I picked mine up in Tampa (not the NPR location) at 4 pm, rather my hubby did. He said they were professional and super nice. They even put down plastic to lay the box on top of just in case it leaked (which it did not.)
My original thought was, OMG what have I gotten myself into. Breaking down 40lbs of chicken was a bit of work, but @ $1.69 (and later dropped to $1.49) a pound I can deal with it. Yes there was a bit of fat and skin, but I still managed to get 20 dinners out of it! So $3.50 per dinner for our protein is an excellent deal!
I just wish I had bought a second one. But they are coming back again the first of the year they told my husband or sooner. So I will be repurchasing.
Melissa – if you run out of chicken, you are welcome to come over here for dinner! 🙂 We should have enough chicken to last until next year 🙂
Unfortunately for me my boyfriend was working so I had 40lbs to trim myself took me about 1hr 1/2 to go through my box. Since its just the 2 of us this will last a while. Thanks for sharing the deal
It took 2 of us to trim, cut and package “to size” our 40 lb. box of the largest chicken breasts I have ever seen 2 hours – well worth the effort!
The only problem I encountered – I was dreaming about chicken all night long!
I feel for you Jeff! Rob was trimming off with you at the same time! That was quite a sacrifice to not be watching the awesome Rays game while he was doing it! They were about 30 minutes late getting to our location in Clearwater, which made it a bit of chaos, but well worth it! We only got 1 box, but had lots of ziplocs. My family of 5 will blow through that box pretty fast, so looking forward to their return!
Kim – it sounds like you and I have great husbands! If you run out of chicken, you all are invited for dinner!
I got mine from NPR..The little one was a bit under the weather so I took my chances and left her with hubby and went a bit early I was there at 7:15 there was one person ahead of me I was in and out in no time!! I had a bit of skin but I cut and cleaned everything in about an hour!! I would do it again it was worth it!!! Your hubby is awesome for prepping for you!! Mine just helped with the clean up with the boxes and bags!! Oh and thank god it was on trash night so the chicken stuff didnt sit in the heat!!!
We ordered 80lbs also and I thought how crazy can I be!!! I spent a good hour and a half trimming and cleaning up. Now my outside freezer is full and those breasts were huge!!! The pickup was great, got there a little before 7:45 at the NPR location and there were just a few cars, got in line and got right through. The only thing I did notice was a slight smell (cleaning/bleachy) on the chicken. Not sure if they wash it in something first but I did notice it. Just curious if anyone else smelled this also.
well in “st pete” we had more complications than NPR…… they didn’t have a location til about 1 or 2pm yesterday because the place where they thought had been approved back out 5pm the night of your seminar, and they were 20 mins late- to show up in clearwater (which clearwater was better for me but i could see where the change in venue would be a problem for some) I just know next time to not plan anything for the day that is “pick up” day but it went quickly once they got to helping hands, it took us just under 2 hours to cut up 40 lbs …… we had 31 pounds of breast and tenders, 2 lbs juice, 7lbs of fat…… so it worked out 1.92 lb but i am going to make chicken broth and other things with the fat…… and that’s not included in 1.92…. still cheaper than a sale at publix- and publix chicken i do not think that there is non-hormone and all that jive, zaycon said on facebook when i wrote them, because i told them to come back sooner rather than later ( i am secretly hoping for ground beef) and they said they would see us sooner 🙂 yay!! gotta save in order to buy the next product…..
I also picked up my chicken yesterday in Clearwater. They moved the site from St Pete to Clearwater which was a small hassle, but all in all it was a good pickup.
We got 1 case of chicken,
I only used 5 freezer bags (gallon size) for my chicken. I take each breast and double wrap it in saran wrap, It wraps it up nice and tight and is very air proof. I can get 8 of these individually wrapped chicken breast in a gallon freezer bag.
Each time you want chicken, you pull out the desired amount of chicken breasts and they are just like the individually wrapped ones from Perdu.
I don’t put any up for kabobs, or cut any smaller, I do the smaller chopping when I take the chicken out of the freezer. It cuts up really nicely when partially frozen,
So it is another way of doing it if anybody is interested. It always works well for us…for most of the bulk meat freezing that we do.
I was also scheduled for a St. Pete pick up and it was somewhat of a problem for the location to be changed mid afternoon as I had made plans with a friend to shop and have lunch in St. Pete and then get the chicken. The actual pick up went fairly quickly and the Zaycon staff was super friendly. I could not believe the size of the chicken breasts. I bought just one case and we split it between four of us. The chicken looks really good and fresh and I’m looking forward to cooking with it.
Wish they would head to SW FL (Ft. Myers/Cape Coral) so we could score some meat at great prices!
Now I’m looking forward to when the come back. We didn’t get any this time because they weren’t coming close enough to us, it was worth the drive and cost of gas. We live north of Jacksonville and the closest place was Gainesville, about 2 hours away 🙁 I hope they come closer next time because this sounds like an awesome deal and I’d love to stock up on more than a few lbs at a time. Do they always go to the same locations or do they move around at all?
Hi Danielle! I am going to put in a request that they go to Jacksonville next time. I know I have a ton of readers there who I think would probably enjoy taking advantage of this deal! But to my knowledge, they determine the areas they deliver to based on the zip codes of everyone who enters their info when they sign up for email registration?
My dear husband (he can be a saint) and the dog picked up the chicken for me in Tampa (I was working). He brought a cooler to put it in, although they had the boxes and plastic everyone mentioned. The folks were friendly. There was one individual holding up the line – as she couldn’t figure out where to put her one box. I think she was worried about leakage – but when they gave her plastic it was all good.
I trimmed and cut, my husband used the foodsaver to package the breasts. They were HUGE. The foodsaver got overheated after about 30 pounds and wouldn’t seal, so we put the rest in the frig (all trimmed) and he finished up today. Chicken is in the frig just waiting. A friend asked if she could cook us some chicken tonight and dear hubby said he couldn’t look at a chicken for a few days – I laughed.
would love to see ground beef on the next trip, but this was GREAT. Thanks for the tip Liza
I had a great experience with the delivery. As known, the St. Pete location was changed with only a couple of hours notice (the pick up time was 5-6pm.) I was at work and planned for my little sister to pick up since she lives in St. Pete. I got a phone call from someone at Zaycon around 5:30p reminding me of the change. I notified my little sister of the change but she stated she was in St. Pete and could not drive up to Clearwater in rush hour traffic before the 6pm deadline (plus she had class later in the evening). I contacted the caller and after a few phone tags later, stated that the delivery was already on its way to NPR. He informed me that he would contact the drivers and see if they would return and drop off my box. Low and behold the drivers agreed and met me back in Clearwater to deliver my one box of chicken. It was a little over 9:30pm by now but I got it and I will definitely order from Zaycon again. They were really helpful and the chicken looked great.
Hey, just thought I’d let you know that boneless, skinless chicken was $1.49 at Sam’s club the other day as well.