What's The Point Of Aldi's Wagyu Ground Beef?

You may have found an eyebrow-raising offer from Aldi while bargain hunting: Wagyu ground beef for only $4.99 a pound. Likewise, you've probably seen pictures of Wagyu beef before — those steaks with delicate streaks of fat spiderwebbing across the surface — and you likely know that it's a very high-end kind of beef indeed. And here you are, about to own a pound of it for just under five dollars! Why, it would be irresponsible not to take that deal. And while it's not exactly "real Wagyu", you may find some great uses for it all the same.

First things first: if you live in America, you probably aren't going to come across genuine Wagyu beef in your day-to-day life. All the Wagyu cattle live in Japan; the only way to get your hands on real Wagyu beef is to buy it for hundreds of dollars per steak. Even if Aldi were to get its hands on Wagyu, it sure as heck wouldn't be turning it into ground beef (mostly made from chuck); it would be like drinking White Horse scotch whiskey from a paper bag in the liquor store parking lot.

So why do so many stores, including Aldi, sell (or claim to sell) Wagyu ground beef in burger form or otherwise? Well, that kind of beef is made from a hybrid between Japanese Wagyu cattle and American Angus cattle, delightfully referred to as "Wangus cattle." It's sold as "Wagyu" because the word connotes luxury (and because American regulations on what can be called "Wagyu" are much less strict than Japan's), but while it's certainly not a bad piece of meat, it's not the genuine article. If you're after those delicate filigrees of fat running through the steak, you're not likely to get it with Wangus beef, but it's still juicy and delicious as only good beef can be.

As for Aldi's offering, giving shoppers access to richer, more marbled ground beef can only be a good thing. Form it into burgers (maybe with egg yolks mixed in, Ina Garten style), use it to make beef Stroganoff, or make meatballs out of it — it's your beef, after all.