[kevinmchugh]

If you're trying to minimize cost, you're better off buying the right quantity of meat to begin with rather than buying preservatives.

Freezing is hugely deleterious to ground beef quality. It changes the texture irrevocably. The two major differences between fast food burgers and fast casual burgers are frozen/fresh and cooked in advance/cooked to order. All the more expensive, more lauded burgers like Five Guys, Shake Shack, In 'n' Out, etc are fresh beef. McDonald's launched a fresh beef quarter pounder to universally positive reviews.

[mandelbrotwurst]

Isn't is possible that the cost of preservatives could be less than the cost associated with splitting your orders into more deliveries?

[tptacek]

Isn't it possible that someone could just do research and work this out, rather than trying to derive it axiomatically?