Although the phrase “meat locker” sounds a bit scary if you’ve watched too many crime TV shows, it’s really just cold storage room, explains NPR’s Morning Edition. Some businesses have started renting out space in those meat lockers to regular people who need some extra storage.
One new meat locker just opened up in Corning, N.Y., offering large plastic bins for $8 a month or smaller ones for $5, that sit on shelves in the freezer.
You go in and you say, “Hey, I’m making ribs tonight, how’s about I get into that meat locker?”
“And what we’ll do is we’ll bring the bin out to you, and you can take out what you want from your bin, and then we put it back in. They’re all labeled,” a staffer at the meat locker explained to one potential customer.
Like many things in the retail world, what’s old is new again: meat lockers were popular in the 1950s, before home freezers became popular. Though buying meat in bulk might seem old-fashioned or just weird to the modern shopper, the meat locker business has some major appeal to anyone looking to save money.
One customer who grew up eating in bulk says he figures he’d rather share space than use his own freezer at home.
“I figure by the time you run a refrigerator and a freezer both, it’s costing you more than $8 a month just to run them,” he explains.
The group in Corning has spurred interest elsewhere in the area, as it’s leader says it’s now working with several others who want to set up their own meat lockers.
A Carnivore’s Solution To Space Constraints: The Meat Locker [Morning Edition]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist