Best Butcher Boxes USA
Can’t find the time of transport to find a local farmer? In need of grass-fed beef or wild caught salmon? Our meat experts reviewed the best 10 butcherbox meat delivery services available in USA.
Best Butcher Boxes
Sourced in USA
Available in USA
Top 10 Best Butcher Boxes USA
Butcher box delivery services have become extremely popular over the last decade. Omaha Steaks from Nebraska was the original starter in the USA. Since their start, many have followed and went online with their services. More and more people get more conscious about their meat and fish consumption. In particularly the butcher boxes that focus on healthy animals and regenerative agriculture gained popularity. Also, the ones that focus on sourcing from the USA have seen a significant increase in popularity. There are many butcher boxes to choose from these days. If you are thinking about ordering a butcher box online, there are many options available and you want to make sure you pick the right one.
Benefits of a Butcher Box
People have many different reasons to shop for a butcher box online. Often the reasons are related to the quality, availability that is not available in their place of living.
Better quality: Most grocery stores in the United States only offer meat from the big top meat producers which is almost always mass-produced and full of growth hormones and antibiotics. Also, they tend to pump the poultry with water and mechanically tenderize beef. Most Butcherbox companies on the contrast work with smaller farmers who offer higher quality and age the beef and air-chill the poultry.
Convenience: Ordering meat and fish online is convenient, fun and it saves you the hassle of going to the store and carrying it to your home. It also allows you to focus more on reading nutrition labels, information about the sources like farms or fishman and watch educational video’s about where your foods is produced and how.
Supporting American Farmers: Because most butcher box websites are proud to inform you who the farmers are, how they raise their livestock or how they catch their fish you know exactly where your food is coming from. Most programs support solely American farmers. By ordering online your support our local and American farmers. If any food is imported it’s usually sourced from the best farmers or fisherman overseas.
Support regenerative: Most of the butcher box meat delivery programs source from farmers who maintain a regenerative agricultural way of producing the livestock. This is not just the best way of raising livestock, it’s the best for the environment and makes the soil more fertile. So yes, eating meat can be very good for the environment!
Better for your health: Grass-fed beef, bison, elk, venison, pasture raised chicken, wild caught fish: All extremely healthy foods. When the animal is healthy the meat will be healthy. Sourcing your food for the right producer simply means higher nutrition values which will benefit your health in a dramatic way.
Incredible packaging: Almost all butcher box program vacuum seal their products and flash freeze. This does not only prevent freezer burn, it’s also extremely convenient. To defrost for example a steak you just take the package out the freezer, put it in cold water and within 30-45 min it’s ready to cook! Aside from the meat packaging itself, most butcher boxes now use fully recyclable or biodegradable material for their insulated boxes. No harm to the environment.
Freezer does not overflow: The traditional way of ordering straight from the farm was usually buying a whole or half cow, pig or a bunch of whole chickens. This required a large freezer and usually a few families getting together to share. The online butcher box meat and fish programs allow you to pick the cuts that you prefer and you can get them shipped whenever you like. No need for a big space consuming freezer. This allows you to save space and opened up the market for people living in smaller spaced like apartments.
It’s fun: Ordering meat and fish online can be a lot of fun. Most online butcher box stores are cool designed websites with lots of interactional material like videos, fun facts, descriptions and nutrition info. It allows you to compare the best farmers of the United States and see how your food is produced. This is an experience that most stores don’t offer. On top of that, most butcherbox website offer tons of free recipes which are fun to experiment with and a great source of inspiration for chefs.
Types of butcher box services
In the butcher box industry, each company seems to have their own focus, serves their own niche and has its own unique selling point. What is the best meat and fish delivery service for you? Its 100% worth it to try them all, explore, taste the difference and see which on you like best. Perhaps use one of the many coupon codes available on our site. Even though each program is unique and has its own selling point, generally speaking we can categorize the butcher box services in the following:
Grass-fed and regenerative agriculture:
A trend which seems to be growing across all butcher box services. Some focus strictly on sourcing from 100% grass-fed beef or bison farmers who raise their livestock in a regenerative agricultural fashion. If you are focused on health and the environment, this category will most likely the best fit for you.
Mixed meats and seafood:
Some of the butcher box programs have expanded over the years to a full assortment of meat and seafood. Grass-fed beef, pasture raised chicken, grass-fed lamb, pasture raised pork, wild-caught salmon, wild caught fish, just a few products to name. If you prefer a one-shop for all this type of meat and fish delivery service will be the best fit for you.
Specialization in a specific product:
Some butcher box services focus solely on one product and specialize in that. For example, Pasture Bird focuses solely on pasture raised chicken. If you like buying from a hyper focus expert or only like one product type, this will most likely be the best meat or fish delivery service for you.
Full grocery store assortment:
Certain programs were established or grew into a full grocery store style program. For example, Perdue Farms and Cuisinery Food Market offer such a wide variety of food, they are pretty much a full grocery store. Ideal for the folks who prefer to avoid in person grocery shopping overall and like to order from the convenience of their home.
Heritage breeds:
Most people don’t realize that most of the meat consumption comes from highly domesticated breeds of livestock. A few butcher box programs like Farm Foods and Cooks Venture decided to focus solely on heritage breeds. Usually, the heritage breeds are a stronger and less domesticated breed of livestock. The meat has a fuller taste, tends to be higher in nutrition value and is almost always pasture raised. It’s the way all meat once was.
There is not one single one best butcher box in the USA. It all depends on personal preferences and what is important to you. We can say that some seem to be better than others in terms of product offerings, information available about sourcing, price points, flexibility in ordering and shipping, packaging, online reviews and just general impression. We did come up with a top-10 best meat and fish delivery services 2024 with our own methodology. Continue to read below how we made a subjective top 10 best butcher box service.
How we compare:
In order to find the best butcher box meat delivery service in the USA available in 2023 we compared the following:
Availability in the USA: Since we focused on the American market, we compared how widespread available each service was in the States
Product assortment: What products are available?
Sourcing: How are the animals raised and what information is available about the sourcing?
Price level: How do the prices weigh out to each other?
Entry level: What is the minimum order necessary and from what price starts free shipping?
Unique selling feature: What is unique, cool or just simply amazing about each service?
With comparing all the above elements, we came up with a top-10 best meat delivery services for USA 2023 and were able to give each butcher box a rating. Our research included far over 10 services but we decided to showcase our best rated services limited to a top 10.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
A butcherbox is a box filled with meat or fish traditionally curated by a butcher and sold as a package deal. Since the rise of online shopping, companies have emerged which allow you to buy a curated butcher box online and some allow you to curate your own butcher box online and get it to your home delivered.
There are many terminologies used for grass-fed beef: 100% grass-fed, grass-fed and grass-finished beef, pasture raised beef and more. We refer to grass-fed beef on our site to 100% grass-fed and finished beef all the way through the lifecycle of the cow’s life. Not by the USDA regulations which can label beef ‘grass-fed’ when it only has been grass-fed a portion of it’s life. Read more in our grass-fed beef blog article.
Grass-fed beef is leaner, contains more omega fats and contains less toxins. It has higher values of vitamins, minerals, an overall higher nutrition value. See our blog article about grass-fed beef health benefits.
Wild caught salmon does not contain the toxins which farm raised salmon has. Although wild caught salmon is leaner, the fat is of higher quality and contains more omega fats. Wild salmon has higher values of vitamins, minerals, an overall higher nutrition value.
No. Most butcher box programs offer a subscription but also a non-recurring option. If they only offer a subscription-based service it’s usually free to cancel and restart at a later date.
By mail. Depending on the company and State you live, a carrier will be used to deliver your meat box. Usually companies like Fedex, UPS or Purolator are used for the long-distance deliveries and local companies are used for within the city or State.
Yes. If the butcher box advertises that the products are frozen, they will make sure the products arrive frozen. They use insulated boxes combined with dry ice and cooling packs to make sure even shipments to the warmer southern States the contents will stay frozen.
No. For the quality of meat and fish you receive right to your door we cannot classify the butcher box services as expensive. Can you buy meat or fish cheaper? Sure thing, but this usually means lower quality and you have to get it yourself. Almost all butcher box services focus on extremely high quality of product and packaging. This costs more starting from the farm but paying more for better quality cannot be called expensive. Before buying a butcherbox we recommend to compare the best meat delivery services.
This varies a lot per service and company but the following products can be found in our top 10 meat delivery services: grass-fed beef, pasture raised pork, pasture raised chicken, grass-fed lamb, grass-fed bison, elk & venison, wild caught seafood, wild caught shellfish, cooking oils and spices.