The best steak comes in the mail
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Butcherbox delivers the best meat from pasture-raised livestock, and their boxes always include a gift that will delight any foodie.
It started with a cow on the kitchen table. You read that right – an actual cow. American Mike Salguero did not buy just one steak, but an entire, butchered animal. It was no mistake, and yet he had no idea how to go about dealing with it. Nor did he know much about meat, only that he was a fan, and that he wanted his diet to become more healthy.
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Either way, the mass of meat in front of him at that moment weighed several hundreds of kilos. He had no butchering skills, but once the work was done, he was pleased. However, the amount of meat was undoubtedly too much for himself and his wife. Luckily, he had friends to count on.
He divvied up the cow into multiple »manageable« pieces, stored them in bags and sold them on. His friends were extremely satisfied. They would tell him how the meat instantly had flavour, and also thought it was more tender than the products they were used to. And they were right; the meat was from a local farm that Salguero had contacted. That’s how they knew where the meat came from. And they knew that the cows had access to a pasture and that no antibiotics or hormones were added to their food.
For a monthly payment of 129 dollars, Butcherbox will deliver 24 meals worth of premium meat. Their menu features beef, pork, and chicken.
All that was missing for Salguero to establish his business model, was a flash of inspiration, which came quickly. The idea to create Butcherbox, his subscription economy service, came to him when he was forced to find a better solution due to the more and more frequent meat deliveries. He could no longer do everything on his own.
He started an online platform, increased his working team, and drastically expanded the experience that only his friends used to have access to. Roughly three years later, his boxes are now being delivered right across the USA (for now, only Alaska and Hawaii are out of his reach).
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To meet the increasing demand, he partnered with even more farmers. He’s very careful to source the meat for his clients, only from farmers who do not take shortcuts in their work, but are continuously striving to improve the pasture conditions for their livestock, as well the working conditions of their employees.
To Salguero, that is a key step to achieve his goal of making good quality meat more accessible. His website states that only one percent of all beef eaten by Americans is one hundred percent grass-fed.
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The last obstacle on his way to success was to figure out how to ship meat to the remotest parts of the USA, without it going bad. Subscribers receive their packages in well-insulated boxes; the meat is deep-frozen and packed in ice. If the shipment defrosts, and a dissatisfied customer complains, they will immediately send a new box.
Butcherbox’s subscribers pay a minimum of 129 dollars to follow the principles of life per month. The box includes enough meat for 24 meals. The subscribers choose if they want a box containing more beef, pork, or chicken, or they can choose a mixed plan.
Butcherbox clients can also order »holiday« meat boxes that will feed a family of any size on special occasions.
When ordering, subscribers will also receive a gift that would delight any foodie, such as some bacon, a 20-dollar coupon, or a piece of wild Alaskan salmon weighing almost a kilo, worth 39 dollars. Subscribers can also add extra pieces of meat to their boxes, selected from the online store.
The website also features instructions and recipes to help subscribers decide how to prepare the products and which spices to use to charm everyone invited to their barbecue.
Meanwhile, Salguero is still focused on that healthy diet. Another idea has been marinating in his mind, which finally materialised in the middle of 2018, when he established a new subscription model - this time to shake up the smoothie industry.