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Shipping Game Meat

A buddy of mine on the east coast doesn't hunt much, however does a lot of fishing for various seafood. He wants me to send him some elk/deer/moose meat in exchange for grouper/sea bass/lobster. My question is, how would you ship 10 lbs of meat based on the following concerns: 1. Keeping it frozen 2. Remaining economical - i.e. I don't want to pay 75 dollars to receive 50 dollars worth of seafood.

Has anyone ever done this?

Make an insulated box. Pack up frozen meat. Ship UPS ground on a Monday. Package should arrive by Thursday still frozen solid.

I have caught and had shipped salmon fillets. The salmon was frozen solid and packed in thick waxed cardboard boxes. The boxes contained 40-50 pounds of fillets. In four hours of travel time from Seattle to Denver, the edges of the fish was still cold but was getting soft. Ambient temps were 70-85 degrees. I sure think on a multi day trip, good insulation and dry ice would be necessary. By the way, $50 of seafood isn’t much. You might be better off buying local.

If you know anyone in the medical field, ask them to snag you one of the styrofoam boxes that are regularly shipped to medical facilities containing immunizations and frozen medications. They have a 3-groove locking lid that, when taped over, keeps things frozen for 3-5 days no problem.

As boreal noted, I always ship on Monday. My buddy up north and I frequently exchange game meat for fish.

I've shipped hundreds of pounds of fish and game from Alaska back east via Fedex. It takes off at 9am and is on the front porch by 4pm (noon AK time) the next day. I would pack boxes of freshly vacuum sealed fish in was boxes with a foil/bubble wrap liner keep it in the big freezer until it was full. Tape it up, tag it and send it. Other times I would put froze fish in the same type of box but could not get it as full due to the shape of the frozen fish. Never had issues with it beening thawed out, maybe in the heat of summer it would be soft on the edges. I have a FedEx account which saved me ~30%, if memory serves me right it was right around 1.70-2.20 a pound. Not cheap when you send three boxes at 60-80 pounds per box. Cheaper than buying sockey at the store for 20$ per pound though. Jeff.

The styrofoam boxes that Ike mentioned are frequently used by pet stores for transporting aquarium fish. If the store turns some good business, they often have several of those coolers that they're willing to part with.

They work well. Add some scrap hard foam insulation, use a little duct tape... they work great.

How much elk meat does your buddy want? I'll ship him pound for pound for lobster as much as he wants! LOL>

I was just thinking the same thing Quinn. I get my own lobster but I'd definitely go pound for pound for grouper...

ditto the vaccine coolers, I've shipped frozen meat to CA from VA in one and it did fine

You can get those coolers at places like Omaha Steaks too.....

i'm in the meat business and sell millions of lbs of meat all over the country, mostly in refer Trucks. we send out tons of samples via Fed-ex.

we use the styrofoam insulated coolers that are inside a cardboard box.

1. deep freeze the meat 2. put all the meat in a bag - trash bag is fine - we use reflective foil bags. 3. put ice packs in the bottom of the cooler - the gel type 4. put meat bag in cooler 5. layer ice packs on top 6. tape the ice chest shut with packing tape and put it in the card board box.

send it second day air.

Bumping this one back to the top. Finally got this worked out and looking for recommendations. I can do my own research online but why not rely on the folks at bowsite that have 1st hand experience. Lobster is in the package, however he asked what kind of fish I would want between the following:

1. Snapper 2. Grouper 3. Tripletail

I'm a novice when it comes to sea fish so interested in your thoughts.

Thanks!

I would pick grouper but have not tried triple tail. Also if you do this in the winter months should it not be way easier to keep frozen?

I use these hot and cold bags when I travel with frozen meat and also for shipping. For $3 or so it has a additional insulation value.

I used a styrofoam box to luggage elk/deer to AK from MT.

Imagine my delight when my meat and box came down the belt busted and meat laying all over. They even managed to destroy the cardboard box around the styrofoam.

db999.......Iowa is about halfway. You could have him ship it to me, then I could refreeze most of it for a day and then ship it the rest of the way to your location. I could add extra ice in the voids just to make sure ;-)

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