Ordering Grass Fed Meat Online: Butcherbox vs. Thrive

My Butcherbox Experience

I’ve recently spent some money ordering grass-fed meat online. The most popular one which is promoted quite a lot on youtube is Butcherbox and I ordered from them recently. I will share a brief overview of my experience ordering from them, in addition to ordering from Thrive Market.

If interested in Butcherbox you can check them out here. The experiences were quite different and I want to share it all with you guys. Before I get into it, I want to share a little about why I’m doing this. I’m currently living in a really remote area and I don’t have a lot of options for real 100% grass-fed meat. Some stores sell grass-fed ground beef. But, in case you didn’t know this – if it does not say 100% grass-fed and grass-finished, it’s not the real deal. They can give it one corn husk and say their cows are “grass-fed” based on that alone (not grass-finished but fed).

Butcherbox

So, I’ve been on a mission the past six months to cook with higher-quality meat for my son and myself. At the very least, I am trying to improve the quality of the majority of the meat we eat. We are not perfect and still have store meat as well. I just want to have the majority of our food coming from better sources.

Ordering Online

So, here is the quick run-down on my experience with Butcherbox. I chose a custom-style box. When trying to order online, I had a lot of issues with their website not functioning smoothly. One thing I do not like about Butcherbox is that when you are signing up, you are basically agreeing to buy meat monthly from them. You can always deactivate and cancel your account after your order (as long as you do it within a certain time frame before you get charged again). But, after I placed my first order and was excited to get the items, I then did some more research on the company (after the fact). I ended up reading just endless negative reviews about people having their accounts re-activated and re-charged without their consent and without them doing so. With the custom box, you get six cuts of meat of varying weights and sizes. With a non-custom box, the total cost will be a bit cheaper. I also got free Italian Sausage (2 packages) and some free ground beef (2 pounds) – which both are greatly appreciated. When the order arrives, it is packaged in an insulated medium-sized box and it contains dry ice. When mine arrived, the dry ice was mostly gone or melted but the food was still frozen thankfully.

The Main Issue

So, the main issue I had was with some of the meat I received, as well as this being a bit too pricey based on the amounts you get. I will share the positives first. When ordering, you can order multiples of items and I did that with the whole chickens. So, here is the positive – the whole chicken that I purchased two of, was incredible. It had such a depth of flavor and was just delicious. The Italian sausage was something I initially didn’t care for so much – it was very plain. But, I cooked it in a different way on a separate occasion where I boiled and baked them like we do with brats in Wisconsin and they were quite good. My issue was with a roast I got from them. I put the roast in the slow cooker on low for many hours and it was inedible. For the high cost, I expect better meat. It was just globs and globs of fat and we got a few tablespoons of edible meat out of it.

I Think There Are Better Options

The other pieces of meat I got from them are not very memorable to me but I do recall getting grass fed steak tips (2 lbs) and also two strip loin steaks which were 10 ounces each and two NY strip steaks. I’m sorry I don’t have an image of all the items I ordered. The other items I mentioned were ok, a bit small, a bit fatty and not outstanding in my opinion. The whole thing was extremely expensive, and after having so many concerns about the account, to me it just hasn’t been worth it to use their services. I did get a lot of advertisements in the actual mail from them urging me to re-sign up and reactivate my account. They offered a lot of freebies if I were to sign back up. So, I logged back in just so I could take a look at the offer and immediately my account said I was going to be charged the next day (I did not reactivate my services – just logged in). And, that was about it for me. I was annoyed and had to contact customer service again to be sure I was not going to be charged. I think if the website didn’t have so many technical issues, I would feel a lot better about the company.  If I had never read so many endless negative reviews, I also might have been feeling less apprehensive with the whole situation. But, with all of this said, I hope I don’t offend people who have had very positive and worthwhile experiences with Butcherbox. Personally, there is something better out there in my opinion.

My Thrive Market Experience

For those who do not know what Thrive Market is, it is basically an online marketplace where you can buy high-quality food as well nutritional supplements and some home items at discounted prices. If you sign up with Thrive Market, you get 25% off your first order – or if you prefer this deal here, you can get $20 off your first Thrive order. <- This link is an affiliate link. As of now I am not an affiliate with many companies but I signed up to be one with Thrive because I love their company and products.

Customer Service and How the Site Works

I really appreciate the care they put into the entire sales process, their products and customer service. For people with special dietary needs like myself (I am gluten and dairy free) they have a great variety of products, many of which are lower in cost than at local stores. Also, they sell items to accommodate others with different food allergies or needs as well as vegan items and tons of organic items. The one thing that is important to mention here (please do not run away when I say this) but Thrive Market is a membership-based store. There are over 600,000+ members and you can try the service for free for 30 days (I highly recommend it) and after that it is $5 a month or $59.95 a year. I would pay for this any day and any time. It is totally worth it. But, there is one other thing to note as this may apply to some of you reading. For every account that is paid for, money is set aside to pay for someone else to get an account at no cost to them.

The company wants to give back to others in the community and help those who want to eat healthy but may not be able to afford the membership cost. For low-income families, current students, teachers, veterans and first responders – the membership fee will be waived. Just look up the Thrive Gives membership and you will be able to sign up.

Seafood and Sources of Meat

So, from what I’ve read, Thrive Market began offering a selection of meat & seafood for sale as of 2018. They are extremely transparent and open with what kind of meat it is and exactly where it’s coming from, farming practices and the location of origin. I really appreciate having these important details because I want high-quality meat and seafood. So, one thing Thrive Market has that Butcherbox does not, is that it also sells ethically sourced seafood (update – Dec. 2019 – Butcherbox began selling salmon).

Frozen Meat Boxes

I really love how they offer a huge variety of options from curated to custom-created meat boxes. I decided to go with this one called: Build Your Own Meat & Seafood Box. It allowed me to choose from a variety of items and this is what I chose. It arrived in a really nice box, fully insulated with a lot of dry ice that was not melted. The packaging was wonderful. So far, my son and I ate half of the cod and it was just delicious. The package of cod included 4 large, long pieces. The package of salmon also came with 4 large, long pieces as well. The cod was simply baked and it was so full of flavor – it actually tasted buttery to me. It was amazing considering I can’t have butter and there was none of that on it. We have not eaten the salmon yet.

Thrive Market Meat Order

Whole Chickens

Besides that, I absolutely love their whole 8-piece cut-up chicken and I think it’s one of the best and most economical choices. You can make many multiple meals by using parts of the chicken and they make it really easy for you by having already cut it up (I know I am not good at breaking down chickens). Though I could have made many things with it, I just a few days ago threw it all in the stock pot and made chicken soup (broth and later gluten free noodles were added). It was incredibly delicious.

Great Variety

Overall, I prefer my Thrive purchase and I absolutely love the variety. If you just have two people at home, then this could be a great option. If you have more than two people and can fit this into your financial situation to purchase meat from here, I really recommend it.

The Cost of High Quality Meat

Though I prefer Thrive, I think both companies should lower their prices as much as they can. From what I’ve seen, Thrive has lower prices now for the most part but it depends on exactly what you purchase.  It seems, when looking over my photos, I can see that the amount of meat I got based on what I spent, is just not that much. It really is pricey no matter how you cut it. On a positive note, there are a lot of cuts of meat and types of meat that they sell online that are not available in most stores. So, I really appreciate everything that is offered online. If you can get organic or 100% grass-fed and grass-finished meat from a local store, and it’s cheaper and you trust it – I would definitely do that. Then, if you are just seeking safe and ethically sourced seafood for example, I once again recommend Thrive.

I recommend Thrive for anyone who wants high-quality, ethically sourced meat that is organic or 100% grass-fed and grass-finished. I really trust the company and I really like what I purchased. I would recommend more specific cuts of meat that are economical, from Thrive, but I need to order more first in order to do so. For example, buying boneless chicken breasts is always going to be pricier than with the bone-in or pricier than a whole cut-up chicken. So, one other purchase I should not have really made was adding the boneless chicken breasts to this order. It provided me with two chicken breasts. It would have been way smarter for me to just add another whole cut-up chicken.