Disclaimer: This post, about a product that I truly enjoy and now am actually a paid subscriber of, contains affiliate links that allow ButcherBox to pay me a few coins for referring you to their product. My opinion is not for sale, and never has been. If I’m sharing a product with you, trust me: it’s because I enjoy it and think you may find value in it, too.
One of my biggest complaints about these subscription services that I see everywhere is that they’re very rarely useful in the long run. I mean, it’s always great to get a box of samples full of things that you might want to buy in the future, but c’mon—for someone like me, the makeup is never the right color for my skin color, the hair samples are rarely ever enough to use on more than an inch-by-inch section of my hair, and don’t get me started on the silliness of “samples” of skin care.
This one, however, is different.
the ButcherBox arrives in a giant styrofoam cooler
When the team behind ButcherBox reached out to me to try the service out for a month, I wasn’t just intrigued, I was excited. Mind you, it’s definitely not the $10 you might pay for one of the sample services, so you should expect more than, well, sample sizes. But ButcherBox brings you full size, meal-worthy batches of grass-fed, organic, free range, and sometimes-heirloom beef, pork, and chicken right when you need it.
Lots of people don’t have stores nearby that sell meat that’s this high-quality, and that’s been one of my greatest frustrations of this “movement” to clean up the quality of meat sold in this country. To me, ButcherBox is a great start to improving that access. There doesn’t have to be a giant chasm between those who have this stuff within arms reach and those who don’t, thereby making it harder to improve the quality of both their meals and their health. This helps out a lot.
a peek inside my ButcherBox!
When the ButcherBox arrives, it’s a giant styrofoam container (more on that later) wrapped in plastic. Inside, you have a reusable cooler bag that houses about 75% of everything you’ve bought. And inside that reusable cooler bag, oh boy.
The contents are high quality, and the taste is incredible. The price for a little over 10lbs of organic, grass-fed, hormone-free meat, is great—when I buy grass-fed beef, the price is close to $17/lb and can be even more for choice cuts. This makes the price way more affordable, if you’re able to buy it in bulk.
As you can see, the servings for each kind of meat were just about enough to accommodate two people each, except for the bacon. I have no idea how much of that #youpeople eat, but I suspect a whole pound of it can get you pretty far.
My only criticism is the packaging, something that isn’t unique to ButcherBox at all. A lot of the food-related subscription services use packaging that isn’t entirely environmentally-friendly. The meat is wrapped in recyclable plastic and the bag that the food comes in is reusable and collapsible which I do love, but the giant styrofoam cooler that the food comes in gives me pause. It might not be recyclable at many recycling centers, and it would be a struggle to put this in the trash each week. You can absolutely give the coolers away or re-use them, though. Donate them to schools, or sports teams, anywhere where people need cold drinks or take trips or have to travel with food. Just…don’t toss it in the trash.
In short, I loved the ButcherBox. I loved the convenience, loved the quality of the product, and actually have become a regular subscriber. It makes for one less thing that I have to travel across Brooklyn to pick up from the grocery store, and one more thing I’ll have ready in my freezer when it comes time to prep and plan my family’s meals for the week. I might not love the styrofoam, but the teachers at my kids’ schools certainly love having new free coolers to keep their food and drinks during the day… and that works for me!
To check out the ButcherBox on your own, visit my affiliate link here at ButcherBox.com—use the code winterBB15 to get $15 off your first order today!
1 comment
My ButcherBox package came 2 days late. The dry ice was long gone; the meat was room temp, completely thawed, and bleeding through the bag into the box.
Their support team does not seem to exist. I sent an email as soon as I saw that my shipment wasn’t delivered on time. Got the auto-reply from Zendesk saying my email was received, no actual answer to the ticket. I called and sent pictures of the thawed and bleeding meat. No reps available on the phone line, no answer to my emails.
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