Costco has been doing this for awhile now... though the grade of chicken might be more questionable!

Costco also does this with their chicken (tenders or breasts, maybe other cuts as well), although I don't think it's organic. They can be tough to tear apart perfectly (I've torn the next package before), so I usually use scissors to separate them.

Sounds like a waste of plastic though right? Doesn't Whole Foods advertise themselves as being sustainable?

I love this type of packaging. It's easy and the meat is fresher and tasty.

I saw this the other day too. Costco has been doing this for years and we love it. I always buy meat in bulk though and then I separate it into one meal's worth in freezer bags. I can get 3 meals (for a family of 4) out of one large package from Costco so then I just pull one bag out in the morning for that evening's dinner.

Wegman's started doing this recently.

Wegmans does this. They also individually wrap bulk pork chops. It makes putting away groceries so much easier. And more hygenic - no chicken juice to clean up after separating everything into individual plastic bags.

Perdue has been doing this for ages too, in individual pieces packed into one large bag; even more convenient for single users.

I love their packaging for chicken in general. It's little plastic trays that have been vacuum sealed so they can go right in the freezer. You could argue that there's some excessive packaging, but considering that with traditional packaging I end up throwing it away and rewrapping it in my own plastic bags, it feels like an improvement.

I appreciate the ease of being able to immediately throw everything in the freezer, then portion out what I need, but I almost prefer the old system. I like to trim all of the breasts before I freeze them so they are really ready to go when I thaw them and this system makes that wasteful.

I love the ease of these products and have seen WF do this for the Rosie brand of chicken breasts but not for their house brand. Perhaps this is a recent change that I'll have to check out at my next visit.

Trader Joe's sells organic, boneless, skinless chicken breast in similar packaging, with 3-4 per package.

Oh, except the Trader Joe's chicken breasts are individually vacuum-wrapped, which I think is even more useful when you're only cooking for 1 or 2 people.

Costco (Georgia) offers both organic and non-organic chicken packaged in similar manner.

A brand of organic chicken sold at local stores in Berkeley (Andronico's, Berkeley Bowl) does that with their bulk chicken-- my only complaint is that, for a family of two who doesn't eat much meat, a whole chicken breast is still too much meat for one meal. I wish they would package smaller chicken fillets this way, too.

@jessicarae, like foodefafa said, many of us end up repackaging the chicken in our own plastic as soon as we get it home, immediately tossing all the extensive packaging it was initially in. I think this is a convenient, while still somewhat green, option that probably cuts down on waste overall.

This packaging is actually why I finally joined the costco across the street - it is great. I get a ton of chicken in freezer ready packages, and you can choose organic or regular for thighs and breast, though I think tenders and drumsticks only come in non-organic. The best part? No stink-inducing super wasteful completely unbreakdownable styrofoam trays. Yay.
I've been cutting them to separate them too, but that's cause I'm clumsy enough without the potential for leaky chicken juice.

Has anyone does a cost comparison between Costco (organic)/Trader Joes/Whole Foods?

Just curious which is the cheaper option....

that store is very expensive, they have no mercy upon nature lovers.

Agreed with foodefafa and hipsterhousewife on the packaging.

@Moorish Girl: that store is very expensive

The store brand 365 is quite competitively priced. Offhand, I can think of a few items that are actually cheaper in their brand than the name brand (such as Carr's water crackers).

they have no mercy upon nature lovers

Ummm sure... I don't even know what that's supposed to mean

WF private label is almost always competitive with Trader Joes and usually much cheaper than the lousy supermarkets with their "healthy organic" ghettos of over priced old fold.

I'd choose Whole Foods for meat any date. They offer the most transparency and Trader Joes the least. You can review the Cornocopia Report on milk to see how much information WF provides vs. TJss.

I've purchased boneless thighst this way before and it was convenient but the whole thing still bothers me.

A package of 12 boneless skinless chicken breasts in little plastic pouches is so totally divorced from nature and just general "chicken-ness." It looks like meat grown in a lab.

this package is very convenient and there's a similar arrangement I do buy occasionally from my local Stop & Shop but I am disturbed by the amount of packaging and disappointed in myself when I do. Separate plastic bag (which is recyclable, however, in Stop & Shop version) but then separate plastic wraps. It is a lot of waste.

The upside, the vacuum wrapped chicken keeps very well even in the fridge (vs. freezer).

Is 365 Organic an exclusive WF brand? I swear I've seen it at Safeway as well...

I have to wonder - what did people do in the days before plastic? Is all that really necessary? Farmers must have had a way to store meat - maybe salting it?

I mostly eat vegetarian meals but my cat developed cancer and we switched him to a diet of fresh duck (he's doing much better after getting away from canned food). I bought humanely raised duck at WF - 12.39 for 2 duck breasts. Wow. Is duck always that expensive?

Anyway - I still think there must be a way to seal in meat in reuseable containers. Aren't pyrex containers airtight?

yeah, i take issue with the extra waste... but it looks like a great idea for those who cook single portions and don't have the time to go to the butcher and buy what they need for the night.

thanks JudiAU....I hadn't heard of the Cornucopia report before. Great information.
Although, drats, I just found all the brands I normally buy at the very bottom of the ratings list, but I'm happy to be able to make smarter choices on my next shopping trip.

it's not really that much extra plastic! Compared to a bag of chicken breasts, the difference in the amount of actual plastic used is pretty small.

@PineTree I think if you consider how many people shop at Whole Foods per day (hundreds? thousands? I know they have 200+ locations) and how many people may buy that product, let's say they sell a grand total of 100 per week - that's a LOT of plastic.

I find this type of packaging so wasteful! If you want individual servings of chicken, just buy it in bulk and freeze/refrigerate in reusable containers. Or, better yet, buy fresh! Is that plastic even recyclable?

I just always took them out of their packages and put them in Pyrex or tupperware, some in the freezer and some in the fridge. It's less packaging and really, really easy.

It's things like this that make me SO happy to have discovered a local butcher. Cheap, good, local (no more than 200 miles) meat that I can trust and I don't use ANY packaging! Well, that's not entirely true, they do use plastic bags to wrap the meat but I haven't found an alternative yet... Any suggestions?

I used to rebag and freeze- but I discovered that just putting cuts of meat (I often dismember an entire chicken, for example) well spaced on a metal tray and just slide them into the freezer that way. Then, after they freeze, I put them all in a dedicated plastic bag that I refill (since it never leaves the freezer). It really reduces waste, and gives me perfect portioning control. I actually do the same thing for casserole-type things (lasagna, mac and cheese) cut into cubes.

Am I the only one who finds that the chicken has a really strange and off-putting smell when it comes out of these packages? The first couple of times I bought it I actually ended up throwing it away without eating it because it smelled so bad that I thought it must be rancid (despite the fact that the date indicated that it was fresh), and then my nanny did the same thing (without me having told her about my experience). I stopped buying it for a while and then tried again just recently -- this time, I cooked and ate the chicken with no ill effects, but it still smelled terrible and made me quite squeamish. I won't be buying it again. Something about it sitting in those raw chicken juices just turns it into something I cannot eat. Am I alone in this?

Plastic has several toxins, not just BPA so the meat is probably contaminated with synthetic estrogen. Not good - I think Pyrex would be a better solution.

@Paladin - I think Safeway also has an in-house organic brand with a similar logo, but I think it's just called "Organics."

Pyrex would obviously be ideal, but the containers are usually expensive and I don't know that I've ever seen one as small as the portion of chicken I usually use in one meal-- they would take up pretty much all the space in my freezer and they wouldn't be anything close to vacuum sealed.