Is there any advantage to 'aging' meat?

Aging beef -- as well as game birds and animals -- can greatly improve its flavor and tenderness. Aging involves many processes, both physical and chemical[1]. 1. First, aging gets the animal carcass through rigor mortis that follows death. read more

Wet-aging uses vacuum sealed bags to age the meat. This means there is no weight lost due to evaporation, it takes only a few days, and still results in a more tender product. This method is the most common because the saved time makes it a much more commercially viable product. read more

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In dry aging, after the meat is aged, the external dried out parts are trimmed off as these exposed, tough and dried out parts are now inedible. Thus, in part relation to your question, should there be any sort of bacteria contained at the surfaces of the meat, it would have been trimmed off and discarded before it hits the butchers. read more