Sometimes, the local grocery store isn’t the best place to get high-quality meat. Thanks to meat delivery services, you can order the type of delicious meat and wild-caught seafood directly to your door. We looked at two meat box delivery companies, Crowd Cow Vs Butcher Box, to see how they compare.
Meat subscription box services have become more popular in recent years, especially as the carnivore diet craze has caught on. With a good meat delivery service, you can get quality, ethics, and sustainability, plus the cuts you’re craving.
Which meat box service is right for you? We compared both companies on variety, quality, subscriptions, price, and customer service. Hopefully, our review will help you decide.
Crowd Cow
Pros
- Great variety
- Premium cuts such as Japanese Wagyu, American Wagyu, and Tomahawks
- Create your own box
- Sides, desserts, spices, etc are available
- Sourcing transparency
- Works with small and local farms
Cons
- Price
- Bad customer service reviews
- No free shipping until you spend $150
- Minimum order required
Butcher Box
Pros
- Sustainable and ethical
- Three curated boxes or create a custom box
- More affordable
- Better customer service compared to Crowd Cow
Cons
- Lack of variety
- Custom box costs more than curated boxes
Subscription Boxes
Crowd Cow and Butcher Box are meat brokers. It’s their mission to get great cuts of beef, other animal proteins, and seafood into the hands of their hungry customers. But what exactly are your box options with Crowd Cow or Butcher Box subscription? Here are the details.
Butcher Box offers its customers four different subscription boxes to choose from. There’s a beef and chicken box that includes different cuts of premium beef with free-range organic chicken, and also a beef and pork box, which is also a selection of premium meats plus heritage pork. If you like a little bit of everything, the mixed box is a classic box with beef, chicken, and pork.
If you’re someone who prefers to choose their own premium cuts, you don’t need to settle for a curated box.
Butcher Box offers a custom box where you can choose your favorites from more than twenty-five selections that cover the entire spectrum, from premium cuts of grass-fed and grass-finished beef to heritage breed pork, free-range chicken, sustainable seafood, and a few extras.
Each Butcher Box order contains around 9 – 14 lbs of meats, no matter which of the meat boxes you choose.
Crowd Cow works off of a different type of system. Instead of offering curated boxes, customers choose what types and how much meat they want.
Although there is a minimum order of $99, you get to decide what types of meats will get you to that quota. Fill up a box with more economical cuts if you’re on a budget, or go all out if you’re a lover of exquisite steaks or are planning a meal for a special occasion.
As far as we know, there isn’t a maximum order limit, so you can go ahead and fill up a great big box if you have the freezer space.
Subscription Boxes Winner
Crowd Cow and Butcher Box are very different in this area, so it’s really difficult to say which is better than the other. We choose Crowd Cow in this category simply because there’s so much flexibility with how they work, and you can build the exact box you want every time.
Variety
When you’re grocery shopping at your local store, you’re rather limited in which meat cuts you have access to, and there are usually few specialty cuts in the mix unless ordered from the butcher. We’re lucky enough to have great grocery stores in our area, and even with that, the meat and seafood selection is lacking.
This is one of the reasons that trying out a couple of meat delivery services was such an attractive idea to us. We love the variety!
Butcher Box offers a good variety of meat, and they have all the basics covered, plus a few extras. While the selection may change a little from week to week, there are staples on the menu that we’ve seen every time.
This includes a full range of beef selections, including premium ground beef, premium steaks like NY Strip, ribeye, flat iron, and more. We loved the tri-tips, sirloin tips, and brisket. There’s also a selection of free-range organic chicken and humanely raised pork.
One area of variety that we weren’t overly impressed with was the seafood. Butcher Box offers just the basics here, including salmon, shrimp, cod, and maybe some scallops.
At first glance, the selection from Crowd Cow almost seemed overwhelming, but that’s mostly because you’re looking at everything all at once instead of by category. You can filter by category, product type, price, and even farm – which is a feature that we appreciate.
At first glance, we counted over 200 different items that can be added to your Crowd Cow box. Keep in mind that these aren’t all meat cuts. There are things like sides, hand-held pies, seasonings, and other add-ons included. Still, the majority of the selection is meat and seafood, and there are also bundles included.
The selection from Crowd Cow includes Premium steaks with grass-fed beef, and Crowd Cow offers Japanese Wagyu Beef and American Wagyu Beef. Steaks include specialty cuts like filet mignon, ribeye, New York Strip, top sirloin, skirt steak, flat iron steak, tomahawks, and more. You name it, and Crowd Cow probably has it.
There’s a good selection of organic, pasture-raised chicken, including chicken breasts, thighs, whole chicken, wings, ground chicken, and chicken sausages. There are a few options for marinated chicken as well.
We like that Crowd Cow makes available types of meat that we can’t always get from Butcher Box. This includes wild game meat and American lamb, for example. The seafood selection is significantly better than Butcher Box’s, too. They have multiple types of fish, lobster, salmon patties, and shrimp burgers.
Variety Winner
The selection is one of the key differences between Crowd Cow and Butcher Box, and in this case, Crowd Cow wins by a landslide. The selection is truly impressive, and that’s not something we say lightly.
Sourcing & Quality
While meat quality is a major reason to sign up with a meat delivery service like Butcher Box and Crowd Cow, it’s not the only reason. It seems that the only place we can get meat and seafood that isn’t from industrial factory farms is by scoping out what these types of services offer.
One reason that Butcher Box has been able to carve out a name with such a top-tier reputation is its commitment to sustainable practices and meat sourced from independent farms that are committed to producing grass-fed beef, heritage pork, free-range chicken, wild-caught seafood, and more, all without the addition of unnecessary hormones.
While much of the grass-finished beef offered by Butcher Box comes from sustainable farms in Australia, they don’t go into much detail about which farms they partner with.
Crowd Cow sources their meat and seafood from independent and sustainable farms, working to create a close relationship with each so that they know exactly the quality they’re offering to their customers.
There’s no question that Crowd Cow offers high-quality beef, free-range and pastured chicken, sustainable seafood, and other items like nitrate-free bacon. However, they don’t adhere to all the same standards across the board. For example, not all of their beef is grass-fed, and not all of their seafood is wild-caught.
If you’re someone who wants to be able to shop without doing much research, then Crowd Cow might not be right for you. However, there are filters for free-range, grass-fed, wild-caught, etc. And there are filters so you can choose which farms you want to support or avoid.
Note – Both Butcher Box and Crowd Cow ship their seafood and meat frozen, vacuum sealed, and packed in dry ice.
Sourcing & Quality Winner
In looking at Butcher Box vs. Crowd Cow in terms of quality and sourcing, our first thought was to give the nod to Butcher Box. But then, we started thinking about it some more.
While not all of Crowd Cow’s products will meet your standards for being grass-fed or wild-caught, they are transparent with this information, which is incredibly important. And, we really like that we know which farms our meat and seafood come from.
Pricing and coupons
Crowd Cow
CURATED BOXES | WEIGHT | PRICE PER MONTH |
Best of Crowd Cow | 9-11 lbs | $149 |
Best of Beef | 7-09 lbs | $149 |
Gourmet Thanksgiving Dinner | 15 lbs | $149 |
Farm-to-Fork Favorites Box | 9-11 lbs | $149 |
Butcher Box
CURATED BOXES | WEIGHT | PRICE PER MONTH |
Custom Box | 9-14 lbs | $169 |
Mixed Box | 8-11 lbs | $146 |
Beef & Chicken Box | 8-11 lbs | $146 |
Beef & Pork Box | 8-11 lbs | $146 |
Basic Box | 7-7.5 lbs | $99 |
With Crowd Cow vs. Butcher Box, there is a very different pricing structure. Butcher Box takes the recurring subscription box approach. You choose either a curated mixed box or create a custom box (with limits).
There are two size boxes for each – either 9-14 lbs or 18-26 lbs. The prices for the curated boxes range from $146 to $269, with the cost for the custom box being slightly higher.
Butcher Box customers can choose if they want to receive deliveries every four, six, or eight weeks.
Pricing for Crowd Cow is a little all over the place, but that can be a good thing if you have a budget you’re sticking to. There’s no shame in packing your box with ground beef and hot dogs.
Crowd Cow options offer beef such as Japanese Wagyu, that’s going to cost a pretty penny. Prices range from about $115 to $160 for 6-16 ounces. Since Crowd Cow lets you choose your own mixed box, you can splurge one time and then pull back the next to stay within your budget.
A few examples of current Crowd Cow prices include:
Filet mignon 8 oz – $23.99
New York Strip 12 oz – $20.99
Top sirloin steak – 8 oz – $10.99
Thick-cut bacon 12 oz – $10.49
Chicken breast 3 lb – $28
Scallops 1 lb – $36.99
Wagyu hot dog 10 oz – $10.99
Bison burger patties 1 lb – $17.99
Pricing Winner
While there’s a major advantage to being able to control the cost of your box by adding what you like, Crowd Cow has an overall higher cost per serving. Butcher Box takes the task seriously of trying to offer high-quality meat at a price point that’s accessible to more people. Their goal is to cost in the ballpark of $6 per meal.
Customer Service & Reviews
Crowd B0x
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Butcher Box
Neither of these companies has overall great reviews online. Personally, after trying them both, we tend to enjoy Butcher Box a little more, but the quality was actually quite similar between the two.
The customer reviews center around quality and common customer service requests. Butcher Box takes some hits in the customer service department, but not nearly as bad as Crowd Cow does.
People are not happy with what seems to be an AI customer service model by Crowd Cow. Claims say it’s next to impossible to get in touch with anyone real, and we all know how frustrating that can be, especially if you have a concern with the product or billing.
We haven’t checked with the Better Business Bureau on any of these complaints, but we did check social media and found it strange that neither company had accessible Facebook reviews.
Customer Service Winner
We didn’t have customer service issues with either company and found the experience pleasant, especially with little details like being able to look up cooking tips online were available to us. However, according to the online reviews, Crowd Cow’s customer service is in need of serious improvement.
FAQs
Is Crowd Cow prime beef?
Actually, no. Crowd Cow grass-fed beef, and other beef selections are all sourced under USDA guidelines and inspections, but many of the smaller farms that they work with do not go through the process of receiving USDA ratings, so they’re not technically prime beef status.Â
Is ButcherBox truly grass-fed?
Whether you’re talking about ground beef or filet mignon, the quality meat offered by Butcher Box is grass-fed and grass-finished.
Is Crowd Cow Ethical?
Crowd Cow has very ethical standards when it comes to sourcing their meat and seafood. They work exclusively with small and independent farms that adhere to sustainable practices. Even in cases where they opt to work with an establishment that offers farmed seafood, they make sure that the practice is still sustainable and ethical.
Where does Crowd Cow meat come from?
Crowd Cow offers meat and seafood from around the world, but mostly from the United States. Customers can see which farms their food comes from and even shop using a filter for specific farms.
Winner
Crowd Cow
It’s often the case that we reach this point with a clear winner in our head, but that wasn’t necessarily the case here. Crowd Cow wins, but not by much. We love the variety and selection, especially the premium cuts of meat we can’t get at our local grocery store. We also like that we can choose whatever we want for our box and the transparency offered in regard to sourcing.
What had us a little wishy-washy was their customer service and price overall – two details that really make or break the experience.
Each offers something a little different, so in the end, we’re going to say it comes down to personal preference in variety and subscription type.
Choose Crowd Cow if you:
- Like a wide range of options from Wagyu Beef and tomahawk steaks to hot dogs and marinated chicken breasts
- Prefer to pick your own box
- Want control over which farmers you purchase products from
- Like transparency
- Have more room in your food budget
Choose Butcher Box if you:
- Enjoy the basics and want good, reliable meat delivery
- Prefer to know that all products are grass-fed beef, grass-finished beef, heritage pork, free-range chicken, etc
- Are you looking for a more budget-friendly option
- Enjoy beef from Australia
- Want a company with a longstanding reputation