Can You Buy Beef Tallow at Woolworths or Coles?

Short answer: not reliably, and not the kind worth cooking with.

Beef tallow has gone from something butchers quietly rendered out the back to something people drive around town looking for. If you have already checked all three and come up empty, here is what is actually going on, and what to do instead.

Beef tallow at Woolworths

Woolworths does not stock pure beef tallow as a standard line in most stores. What you will find near the oils is usually a blended cooking fat or a lard product, and occasionally a small jar of a branded tallow in stores with a larger health foods section. Availability moves around constantly and it is rarely worth the trip.

If you do find something labelled tallow, read the ingredients before you get excited. A genuine product lists one thing: beef fat. Anything with vegetable oil, antioxidants or "cooking fat blend" on the back is a different product wearing the word.

Beef tallow at Coles

Same story. Coles carries copha, lard and various shortenings, but pure rendered beef tallow is not a reliable line item. Some stores have started stocking a jar or two in the health aisle, again inconsistently, and usually at a price that reflects it being a health aisle product rather than a cooking fat.

Beef tallow at Chemist Warehouse

This one surprises people. Chemist Warehouse does sometimes carry tallow, but almost always as a skincare product: whipped tallow balm, tallow moisturiser, that sort of thing.

Those are formulated for skin, usually blended with oils and sometimes fragranced, and they are priced accordingly. They are not what you want in a roasting tray. And if you were planning to use tallow on your skin anyway, you are paying a significant premium for a small jar of something a butcher sells by the kilo.

Why supermarkets do not really stock it

It is worth understanding, because it explains why this will not change soon.

Supermarkets buy beef already broken down into retail cuts. The fat has been trimmed off further up the chain, in a boning room, and sold into rendering as a commodity. By the time beef reaches a supermarket there is no fat stream to turn into tallow, so any tallow on the shelf has to be bought in from a third party, packaged, and given shelf space competing against a two dollar bottle of canola.

A butcher who breaks down whole primals has the opposite problem. There is more fat than anyone knows what to do with, and rendering it is the obvious use.

So where do you actually buy it

From a butcher. This is one of the few things where the old answer is still the right one.

We render ours from Australian beef and sell it in jars at the shop in Mortdale and online. One ingredient, no blends, no fillers.

What to look for in a good tallow

• One ingredient. Beef fat. That is the whole list.
• Firm and off white at room temperature. Soft or yellow usually means it has been blended or is on the turn.
• Clean, neutral smell. Good tallow barely smells of anything. Strongly beefy tallow was rendered too hot or from the wrong fat.
• Sold by someone who handles beef. A butcher rendering their own has a shorter, more traceable supply chain than a repackaged import.

What to cook with it

Roast potatoes. This is the one that converts people. Parboil, rough up the edges, and roast in hot tallow. Nothing else gives you that shell.

Searing steak. High smoke point, and it browns beef better than a neutral oil because it is beef.

Chips. The reason chips tasted different before the 1990s is that most places fried in beef fat. If you want to know what the fuss is about, fry a batch in tallow.

Yorkshire puddings. Needs a fat that can take a very hot tin. Tallow can.

Roasting vegetables. Carrots, parsnips and onions all take well to it.

Where it does not belong: delicate fish, anything you want to taste clean and light, and baking where you want a neutral flavour.

Tallow versus the other fats

Smoke points are approximate and vary by refinement, but the ranking is stable.

The practical difference between tallow and duck fat for roast potatoes is smaller than people claim. The practical difference between tallow and butter is enormous, because butter burns long before the potato has a crust.

Rendering your own

It is genuinely easy, it is cheap, and the only real skill is patience.

1. Get the fat. Ask a butcher for beef fat trimmings or suet. Suet gives the cleanest result.
2. Cut it small, or ask us to mince it. Smaller pieces render faster and more evenly.
3. Melt it slowly. Heavy based pot, splash of water to stop it catching, lowest heat, two to four hours. A slow cooker on low works well and is harder to ruin.
4. Strain it through muslin or a fine sieve once the solids have sunk and gone golden.
5. Jar it and let it set. It will turn firm and off white as it cools.

The crisp bits left in the sieve are worth salting and eating. That is what scratchings are.

Low and slow is the whole trick. Render it hot and fast and you get tallow that tastes strongly of beef, which is fine for chips and wrong for everything else.

Storing it

Tallow is shelf stable. Kept in a sealed jar out of direct light it will hold for months in the pantry, and considerably longer in the fridge. It does not need refrigeration, though the fridge keeps it firmer and easier to spoon.

If it ever smells sharp or paint-like rather than neutral, it has oxidised. Bin it.

A tip worth knowing: strain and reuse it. Tallow you have roasted potatoes in can go back in the jar once it has been strained, and it will be better the second time.

The skincare question

Two separate crowds search the same term, so it is worth being clear.

Cooks want tallow because it has a high smoke point, is stable at heat, and leaves a savoury depth that oil does not.

The skincare crowd want it because tallow is close in composition to the fats in human skin. Whether you buy that reasoning or not, they are looking for the same raw ingredient, and the raw ingredient from a butcher is a fraction of the price of a branded balm. We sell food grade tallow rather than a cosmetic product, so what you do with it after that is your business.

The short version

Supermarkets are not the answer for cooking tallow. Chemist Warehouse sells it as skincare at skincare prices. A butcher sells you the actual thing.

Questions we get asked

Does Woolworths sell beef tallow?
Not reliably. Occasionally a jar in the health aisle, usually blended cooking fat near the oils.

Does Coles sell beef tallow?
Same. Copha, lard and shortenings yes, pure rendered tallow not as a standard line.

Does Chemist Warehouse sell beef tallow?
Sometimes, as skincare. Not for cooking.

What is the smoke point of beef tallow?
Around 200C to 205C, higher than butter and most extra virgin olive oils.

Does it need refrigeration?
No. Sealed, out of the light, it keeps for months in the pantry.

Can I render my own?
Yes. Ask us for suet, melt it low and slow for two to four hours, strain, jar.