Sydney-siders.....where to buy lard?

Hi

Can anyone point me in the right direction please. I'd rather not have to buy it online and apparently Coles and Woolworths no longer stock it. Any suggestions?

Also, I have had some sweet almond oil (I've only used a bit) in the cupboard for maybe 18 months. Its use by date is April. Should I take the risk? Smells ok

Thanks as always :wave:

Two choices. You can find a butcher that renders their own, but it's expensive. Usually $3.50 per 200gms, there's an organic butcher in Bondi that makes it. Or you can buy the pork fatback and render it yourself. The fatback will be cheaper but it will cost you time. If you don't particularly want pork fat then the squares of Solidified Oil in your local supermarket (the red foil), are usually beef tallow or a mix of beef and pork and work just as well. I'm surprised to hear the majors no longer sell it because they used to have it in the butter section made by the Allowrie brand.

Do you have Foodland or Foodworks close by or other smaller chains - might be worth a try

Thanks!

According to what I read Allowrie (now York Foods?) are trying to get consumers to complain to Coles and Woolies about it being removed from the stores.

So many of the soap recipes seem to call for palm oil or lard. I don't object to using animal by-products or Palm as long as they are ethically produced. I buy free range eggs and meat etc. So that would mean buying sustainable Palm oil or identifying lard that fits the bill. If I opt for sustainable Palm oil then I have to buy it online with postage fees so I'd prefer to get lard.

Basically I'm looking for what to use in all the recipes that call for either Palm oil or lard

Tallow/lard is your perfect choice then. Personally I find this to be nicer in soap than palm oil. Find a local butcher that deals in ethical meats. Plenty of them in Sydney. Call them up tell them you are looking for either lard or to buy some suet and they should be able to hook you up.

Suet is easier to render than fatback. Fatback is the skin and fatty tissue from the pigs back. It requires some scraping to remove the last of the meat and then a heap of boiling down and smells very porky. Suet is a large leaf of fat that sits around a cows kidney's. It generally doesn't have any flesh or other bit attached to it and is very quick and easy to render down as it's pretty much pure fat with a tiny bit of impurities. Both will give a similar feel in soap.

If you later decide to soap with animal fats and want it in bigger quantities contact the free-range, grass fed farmers who frequent Sydney's farmers markets. They can most certainly supply you with large quantities if you pre-order it and collect it from the market, and will probably be happy for you to find a use for this as mostly it's a waste product. They aren't used in food production much anymore.

Thanks for the advice, I'll start checking the local butchers out.

Update......IGA sell Allowrie lard and Allowrie dripping