GSI Deluxe Bacon

Breakfast: the most important meal of the day. In our busy lives, we rarely have time for a decent breakfast anymore, but once you wake up to the wonderful smell of Gourmet Secrets’ deluxe bacon throughout the house, you’ll never want to skip it again! Our bacon from 100% free range pork is deluxe trim, double maple and big on taste, always a treat to have around whether it’s for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Bacon is usually made from pork belly cured in brine or dry salt for many hours, then smoked and sliced into thick strips that produce the streaky bacon we know and love. Bacon is often enjoyed beside eggs, potatoes and toast and is very popular as a sandwich meat, being a key ingredient in the preparation of a BLT. If you prefer something greener and healthier, cook up your bacon until crispy, chop it up into small chunks or bits, and use it as a garnish for your salad! Often very popular in dressings and sauces when rendered into tiny bits, you can make your own bacon ranch dressing by simply combining mayonnaise, white vinegar, parsley and bacon bits! Bacon also features as a garnish for many of our products, whether it is wrapped around our filet mignon, chicken breasts or scallops, or stuffed into our premade baked potatoes. Why not try Gourmet Secrets’ deluxe bacon in your own dishes?

If you love bacon, don’t settle for anything less than the best. Get some of Gourmet Secrets’ Deluxe Bacon Strips today at http://www.gourmetsecrets.ca!

Celiac Friendly GSI Reserve Homestyle Angus Steak Patties

What says “summer” more than a freshly-grilled burger patty with all kinds of crisp vegetables and sauces between two burger buns? Not much- and Gourmet Secrets’ celiac-friendly Angus steak patties will be sure to bring that backyard barbecue experience to new heights!

One of our most popular products, the Angus steak patties are made of 100% Angus beef chuck steak, ground and formed into a patty with a few seasonings like beef stock and ground black pepper to bring out that great burger flavor! These are also some of the largest patties you’ll ever have tossed on the grill, weighing in at 6 ounces. But one of the most subtle differences lies in something that is often overlooked in other burger recipes: this product is part of our celiac-friendly lineup, free of wheat products in their ingredients! In the case of our famous steak patties, carrot fibers are used as a binding agent for the patty instead of wheat flour, which makes them safe to eat for someone with gluten intolerance.

Make your next barbecue a hit with everyone with the Gourmet Secrets Reserve Homestyle Steak Patties!

Nova Scotia Lobster

What is more regal than a fully-cooked lobster served with melted butter and a variety of accoutrements on the table? Not very much! Gourmet Secrets is proud to bring you live lobster right at your doorstep for free in the Gourmet Secrets Live Lobster Festival, ready for the pot and then the table! But how much do you know about lobster, besides its delectable flavor and tender texture?

Nova Scotia lobster belongs to the species Homarus americanus, which makes its home in the warm waters of the Atlantic, from the Labrador in Canada all the way to Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, though it is uncommon south of New Jersey. With members of the species measuring up to 64 cm and weighing in at over 20 kilograms at times, it is the heaviest and one of the longest crustaceans in the world. Because it is a crustacean, it was once considered food for the poor; today, lobster is the example of fine dining, and highly sought after for its great taste and texture.

Contrary to what would be expected, lobsters are not naturally red: their shell contains a mixture of pigments which gives them a green and brown color. When it is cooked, almost all the pigments get degraded by the heat, except for the one which makes the shell red, thus making the lobster a rich red color once it is ready to eat. However, in the wild, lobsters can come in a variety of fantastic colors such as bright blue, stark yellow, and even albino white!

The traditional way of cooking lobster is with a live boil: simply drop the lobster into a pot of boiling water head first and boil it until its shell becomes completely bright red. Then pluck it out of the water and serve it on a plate with lobster crackers, clarified butter and some mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables to enjoy on the side!

Gourmet Secrets wants to bring you your very own live lobster for your dinner feast, so come on: call right now at 1-877-254-0222 and get your Lobster Festival Pack today!

GSI Scampi Tails

Gourmet Secrets has no shortage of delectable seafood selections for any occasion. From shrimp to scallops, from lobster to king crab, we’ve got enough ocean treasures to satisfy every taste. But what about scampi? These lesser-known seafood treats are some of the smallest members of the lobster family: while they are the size of shrimp, they have the flavor of lobster, and are Montréal’s favorite seafood!

Scampi tails come from the Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus, the most important commercial crustacean in Europe. They are slim and orange-colored, measuring up to 20 cm in length usually: exceptional individuals reach about 25 cm! They live in semi-permanent burrows under the sand where they make their home during the day, coming out at night to catch food. These burrows mean that only parts of the sea floor are suitable for their habitation, with large areas of inhospitable terrain separating over 30 populations in the North-Eastern Atlantic. This also makes Norway lobster populations easier to manage and fish, since individual adults rarely travel more than a few hundred meters.

Once the scampi are fished, their tails are cut to create GSI Scampi Tails, and are immediately flash-frozen afterward, in order to lock in the flavor and juices and ensure their freshness. Their delicate texture and sweet flavor make them a unique delicacy for your guests and family. As with all our seafood, Gourmet Secrets Scampi Tails follow the strict Safe Quality Food Level 2 safety standards, which ensure you get the very best, healthiest and wholesome seafood from us.

Whether you broil them in the oven with your favorite herbs and spices or poach them lightly in a white wine stock, scampi are sure to delight at your next occasion. Try something new with GSI Scampi Tails today!

Gourmet Secrets Premium Packaging Strategy

All Gourmet Secrets orders must undertake a trip from the plant to your doorstep, no easy task over long distances and especially involving frozen foods. Whether you live in Edmonton, Montréal, Halifax or Iqaluit, we work hard to ensure that the contents of your package remain frozen until it reaches your doorstep. How do we do this?

Enter the GSI Premium Packaging Strategy. This three-pronged strategy is the most effective way to ship out orders of frozen food.

The first step is the flash-freezing process all our food goes through. Patented by American inventor Clarence Birdseye, the modern flash-freezing process involves freezing water at temperatures well below zero degrees Celsius nearly instantaneously, preventing large ice crystals from forming. A higher-quality freezing process, flash freezing locks in all the juices of the meat, prevents damage to the texture and ensures that the product remains frozen longer.

The second step is the packing of the order in a styrofoam container. Styrofoam is an excellent isolating agent, preventing heat from entering the package and affecting the contents within. Simply placing frozen items in a styrofoam package can keep it preserved for a much longer time in a room at ambient temperature than if it were left on the counter- but we go one step further.

By adding dry ice to our packages, we fulfill the third step of our packaging strategy. Dry ice is the solid form of normally-gaseous carbon dioxide, and can only remain a solid at temperatures of -78.5 degrees Celsius or lower. A thick layer of dry ice on top of your food ensures that the contents of your order remain rock-solid frozen, by keeping the internal temperature of the order at nearly -80 degrees or lower! Plus, when dry ice goes above its freezing point, it does not melt, but rather sublimates: becomes a gas! This prevents waterlogging of your order, which would otherwise speed up the thawing process.

With a combination of the best quality freezing methods, keeping the internal environment of the order at extremely low temperatures and using a box that keeps heat out, we make sure that everything stays frozen until it reaches your doorstep. Shop for the best quality food in confidence with Gourmet Secrets today!

The Gourmet Secrets Difference: Poultry

Free Range Boneless Chicken Breasts, Homestyle Chicken Pot Pie, Chicken Souvlaki Kabobs, Free Range Turkey Breasts, Gourmet Secrets Deluxe Chicken Fingers, Chicken Cordon Bleu

Chicken is a big part of many Canadians’ diet. Tasty and juicy, poultry is a healthy and versatile choice for your every day meals. For years, our customers have made our Boneless Chicken Breasts and our Deluxe Chicken Fingers a healthy staple in their diets, and they keep coming back for more. So what makes Gourmet Secrets’ poultry different from what you can get at the grocery store?

Two words: free range. Like all our meat selections, Gourmet Secrets chickens roam free, in the outdoors, allowing them to exercise and walk around with no constrictions or confines. Their feed is also free of inorganic additives, antibiotics and hormones, allowing them to grow at a natural pace and ensuring that the chicken you then eat is 100% natural and healthy for you. Every piece of poultry is cut by hand at our federally-inspected processing plant, flash-frozen immediately to lock in all the juices, then packaged and readied for your order! There are no extraneous treatments such as brine baths, water injections or anything that alters the natural quality and texture of Gourmet Secrets chicken: every bite is juicy, tender and delicious!

When you order Gourmet Secrets poultry products, you also get convenience: individually-frozen portions that you can prepare at your leisure. You’re in no rush to use up your chicken breasts because every single piece is individually vacuum-packed, which drastically lowers the chance of freezer burn. And our prepared chicken products such as our Chicken Cordon Bleu and Homestyle Chicken Pot Pie are so easy to make: just heat up the oven and pop it in for a delicious, quality meal!

So why not get some chicken from Gourmet Secrets today? Taste the difference that free-range, natural chicken gives you!

The Gourmet Secrets Difference: Beef

Clockwise from top left: Extra Lean Beef Cubes, Celiac-Friendly Angus Steak Patties, GSI Reserve French Roast, GSI Reserve Filet Mignon 6oz, GSI Reserve New York Steaks, Extra Lean Angus Ground Beef.

Gourmet Secrets prides itself on the very best in gourmet meats and seafood. It’s at the center of our concept, and nowhere is this more apparent than with the beef products we provide every day for our customers. From tender and juicy Bacon-Wrapped Filet Mignon to Extra Lean Beef Cubes, from Celiac-Friendly Angus Steak Patties to Beef Prime Rib Roast, all Gourmet Secrets beef products follow the highest standards of quality, so you can enjoy the best at great value.

Gourmet Secrets’ beef is free range, which means it’s out to pasture. The difference is the breadth of roaming: most cattle are kept in smaller, high-density, muddy enclosures with little to no grass growing, fed corn, soy and other grains with a metal trough. Gourmet Secrets’ beef, on the other hand, roams free in wide, open and grassy pastures, grazing naturally and enjoying as much space as it needs. The method of feeding Gourmet Secrets beef combines the best of both worlds: grass-feeding for their development and growth, and a light grain finish to grant it that extra marbling that gives it its AAA rating- all without inorganic additives, antibiotics or hormones. This makes for a healthy choice meat that is 100% natural and 100% beef. Our beef is then dry-aged for 21 to 28 days, a process which concentrates beef flavor in the cuts and makes it even more tender than before by breaking down tough connective tissue. This process makes for a higher-quality cut than what can be found at most supermarkets- in fact, the most renowned steakhouses and restaurants in the world demand only beef aged in this fashion!

When you order from Gourmet Secrets, you get free-range, grass-fed, grain-finished beef, free of chemicals and hormones, aged 21 to 28 days then flash-frozen, vacuum-sealed and immediately packed with your order. When it arrives to your doorstep, these tender, juicy and beefy cuts are ready for the grill, stew, casserole or whatever you want- all for $3.99 or less per serving! So what are you waiting for? Experience the difference of Gourmet Secrets beef today!

Gourmet Secrets Nordique Island Seafood Sauce

Creamy, hearty, delectable… the Nordique Island Seafood Sauce of Gourmet Secrets is a favorite of our seafood-loving customers. Toss it in the saucepan, heat it up to a gentle boil, toss in some linguine noodles- that’s the tried-and-true recipe for this sauce.

Prepared with wholesome ingredients, the Nordique Island Seafood Sauce contains crisp cold-water shrimp, tender scallops, meaty chunks of lobster meat and pollock, onions, carrots, celery, garlic and seasonings, all mixed together in a tomato and white whine sauce. Alone, these ingredients would be good, but together in the sauce, they create a gourmet seafood experience like no other. With no chemical preservatives added, every bite you take brings you nothing but ocean fresh, SQF Level 2 certified seafood!

One of the most versatile ingredients Gourmet Secrets offers, the Nordique Island Seafood Sauce can be enjoyed on toast or crackers, as a pasta sauce to make a delectable seafood pasta, mixed in mashed potatoes or rice, added in a pita sandwich with crisp lettuce and tomato, or even used to top off your New York Steak to make a steak Neptune! And if you’re feeling more for a hearty soup, no problem: add some milk to the pot while you heat the sauce, and you’ve got yourself a rich seafood chowder!

So many of our customers have tried and loved the Nordique Island Seafood Sauce: grab some for yourself today in your next order and discover the famous Gourmet Secrets taste!

Wild Mahi Mahi Portions

Firm, flavorful and delicious, mahi mahi practically embodies the term “ocean treasure”. Hailing from the seas around Hawaii, this fish is highly prized as a gourmet ingredient, whether grilled on the barbecue, battered and baked, or chopped up to make delicious fish tacos.

Its scientific name is Coryphaena hippurus: a beautiful-sounding name for a beautiful fish. Reaching a weight of 7 to 13 kilos on average, these oddly-shaped fish shine with amazing ocean colors, from blue at the dorsal fin to tropical green at the belly and a strip of gold on their side, earning them the Spanish name “dorado”, or golden. At first, mahi mahi was bycatch- that is, while fishing for tuna and swordfish, mahi mahi would be incidentally caught and then sold as an afterthought. Over the years, a commercial fishery for it has developed on the fish’s own merits- its firm flesh and incredible flavor make it an ocean delight that Gourmet Secrets is proud to offer to families across Canada!

Like all Gourmet Secrets fish and seafood products, our 5 oz Mahi Mahi Portions are Safe Quality Food Level 2 certified, which means they adhere to the highest food safety standards in Canada. Flash-frozen right on the boat to lock in the juices and flavor, when you grill these on the barbecue or toss them with Hawaiian-style dressing for delicious fish tacos, you’ll go wild with Gourmet Secrets’ Wild Mahi Mahi Portions!

Myths and Facts about GSI Shipping

As the first meat and seafood company in Canada to provide online ordering services to families across the country, we get our fair share of questions from customers who are not too familiar with our concept or the process that’s needed to make all parts of it possible. Whether it is about the quality or provenance of our products, to the shipping process, to the green-ness of the online shopping process, we love to address these questions and spread the news about Gourmet Secrets to our customers. By far and large, however, the number one question we receive is this one:

Why is there a shipping cost, and why is it so expensive?

And this is a good question- it’s important to know where your money is going! There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding this particular question, however, and we want to make sure you’re armed with accurate information on how the shipping works at Gourmet Secrets. Here’s one of the myths and facts about Gourmet Secrets shipping.

Myth: Shipping is always expensive when ordering from Gourmet Secrets.

Fact: Yes, shipping can be expensive- when you order only a few items. Every package from Gourmet Secrets comes in a styrofoam container and with enough dry ice to last until it arrives to your door, no matter if it’s 2 items or 20 items. We do not get these things for free: their price must be included in the cost of an order if we are to be able to grow as a company to serve you better. Smaller orders also tend to need somewhat more dry ice than larger orders to keep frozen for the same amount of time, since the lone items will thaw more quickly than an item surrounded by other frozen things. A larger order will thus have a lower shipping price per item than a small order, and since you are ordering fewer times, you don’t pay for more than one trip for your food!

Myth #2: We don’t pay shipping on purchases from a physical store.

Fact: You don’t see it, but it’s there: shipping costs in physical stores are usually included in an item’s price, as well as the costs that come with a physical location such as heating, electricity and employee wages: collectively, they are called “overhead”. Unless you purchase directly from a manufacturing plant, there is always a shipping cost included in the price of any item you purchase at a store, as it had to travel from that plant to the retailer which now stocks your items. The overhead is a smaller portion of the price of larger stores due to the sheer quantity of items they purchase at one time, while in smaller butcher shops, the overhead can make a real difference in the price of the meat. At Gourmet Secrets, you get a store that’s accessible 24/7 without needing to pay for the heating and electricity costs associate with a physical store- and you get it sent straight from the plant to your house, with no need to use extra gas to go to the store, in an easy and convenient way!

Myth #3: Gourmet Secrets makes money off the shipping cost.

Fact: Contrary to what you might think, Gourmet Secrets is also charged shipping for all outgoing orders! The shipping solutions offered by UPS ensure that we can deliver your food right to your doorstep without you needing to sign for the package- this also means employing the services of that external courier company, which charges a shipping cost to both person and business. The shipping charges on your order are thus part of the total cost of purchase from us. We know that having our customers pay for the entirety of our premium shipping and packaging wouldn’t be very fair, though- that’s why we help reduce the shipping cost as much as we can so we can bring it down to the very reasonable rates we have now.

The delivery of our food straight to your doorstep is part and parcel (no pun intended) of the Gourmet Secrets concept- and so is the delicious food that we are proud to bring to you with convenience and at great value. You can shop from Gourmet Secrets with confidence that every penny you spend with us helps us grow and serve you better.