Crowd Cow Review: Is the Meat Delivery Service Worth Your Money?

Do you want to save time at the grocery store or streamline your meal planning, shopping, and cooking process?

A meat delivery box is a great way to do just that. If you appreciate variety, then Crowd Cow is one option you may want to look into.

This Crowd Cow review can help you decide if the monthly subscription service is right for your household.

What Is Crowd Cow?

Crowd Cow is an online meat delivery service that offers one-time orders and subscriptions.

They specialize in high-quality meat that is responsibly raised. Although they source some meats from American family farms and fisheries, they also source premium meats from around the world.

Some of their unique offerings include game meats and Wagyu beef, which is prized for its flavor and tenderness thanks to its high degree of marbling.

How Does Crowd Cow Work?

Crowd Cow operates like any other online retailer. 

A subscription isn’t required, so you can browse the site and add items to your cart without signing up for anything.

However, there are a few major advantages of subscribing to Crowd Cow, including:

• They offer free shipping on subscription orders over $125
• You get five percent off recurring orders
• They offer perks like two free pounds of ground beef in every box for the duration of your membership
  

Additionally, it’s easy to cancel or change your shipment schedule on the website.

These benefits make it worthwhile to sign up for the subscription if you’re buying in bulk (for the free shipping), even if you’re not sure you’re going to keep the membership.

What Comes In a Crowd Cow Box?

Crowd Cow offers several types of proteins. Here’s a small cross-section of some of the all-natural meat and sustainably sourced seafood they provide:

• Beef: grass-fed, pasture-raised, or American or Japanese Wagyu with a variety of cuts available
• Bison: pasture-raised, includes steaks, burgers, bratwurst, and ground
• Chicken: pasture-raised or organic free-range chicken with several boneless and bone-in cuts available
• Duck: fully cooked or smoked, rendered duck fat, raw breast and leg quarters
• Game meat: venison, boar, and elk (when available)
• Lamb: ground, rack of lamb, loin chop, leg of lamb, and lamb shank with no antibiotics or added hormones
• Pork: heritage pork with a variety of cuts available, including bacon, ham, and sausage
• Seafood: wild-caught or humanely farmed cuts of salmon, cobia, cod, halibut, lobster, shrimp, scallops, swordfish, Arctic char, crab, trout, and Chilean sea bass
• Turkey: pasture-raised meat, including whole, ground, and bratwurst

In many of these categories, they offer raw meat and some fully cooked options.

Additionally, Crowd Cow sells spices and seasonings, side dishes, and desserts with no artificial ingredients.

How Much Does Crowd Cow Cost?

Because Crowd Cow doesn’t operate like a traditional subscription box, prices can vary depending on the items you select.

Their prices for individual meats begin at roughly $5-$6 per pound for bone-in chicken. But, prices can approach as much as $197 per pound for Japanese Wagyu ribeye steak.

Subscribers receive a five percent discount on all prices and free shipping on orders over $125.

Right now, you can get free ground beef (or another meat choice) with every order when you subscribe.

Additionally, you can receive NY Strip Steak on orders over $175 when you use the code FREENY4U23 at checkout.

Where Does Crowd Cow Get Their Meat?

Crowd Cow sources their wide selection of meat and seafood from a variety of small-scale farms, family farms, larger farming operations, and fisheries across the world. 

In fact, the company is ideal if you want to learn more about where your meat comes from. The farm or fishery for everything on Crowd Cow is listed next to the type of meat.

You can also shop by farm and read more about each farm on the individual sales page for every product.

One thing all the farms that work with Crowd Cow have in common is their animal welfare standards. Their animals are humanely raised or caught.

That’s not something you’re likely to find at the local grocery store.

My Experience Using the Service

I thought Crowd Cow’s website was easy to use. I filled up my box with a variety of meats and opted for a free pound of ground American Wagyu beef as the bonus item in my box.

Here’s what I received:

• Heritage thick-cut bacon
• Grass-fed, grain-finished New York strip steak
• Grass-fed, grain-finished filet mignon
• Grass-fed, grain-finished ground beef
• Pasture-raised chicken breast
• Norwegian Atlantic salmon
• American Wagyu ground beef

The meat arrived fully frozen with dry ice. All of the shipping materials are recyclable, and the dry ice simply dissipates. 

There are no ice packs to recycle, store, or dispose of. This makes the packaging pretty eco-friendly.

It’s important to note that I didn’t continue with the service after receiving my first box. This is because we normally purchase meat from our local butcher.

However, I was impressed with their customer service. I received a hand-written thank you note in my box and a follow-up customer satisfaction email after I canceled the service. 

These small, thoughtful touches would definitely put Crowd Cow at the top of my list if I were to return to ordering meat online.

What I Made

I was impressed with Crowd Cow’s meat.

The first dish I cooked was a parmesan-crusted chicken with salad and flatbread. The chicken stayed tender and didn’t have the weird, firm-but-stringy texture that cheap grocery store chicken can often have.

Next, I finished off the chicken by making brown sugar-garlic chicken with brussels sprouts and quinoa. Once again, the chicken stayed really juicy. 

Since we were excited to try the ground Wagyu, I also made some Wagyu beef smash burgers. They were pretty good but fairly indistinguishable from standard ground beef.

I’m not sure that I’d pay a premium for ground Wagyu or choose one pound of it as my monthly Crowd Cow perk over two pounds of regular ground beef.

However, I cooked the broccoli in the rendered Wagyu beef fat, and it was delicious.

Is Crowd Cow’s Wagyu Real?

Crowd Cow’s Wagyu beef is authentic. Their grass-fed Wagyu beef is grain-finished for optimal taste.

They offer Japanese Wagyu and Kobe beef (a specific type of Wagyu), as well as Wagyu beef raised in America, New Zealand, and Uruguay. 

For the most authentic experience, choose from their selections of Japanese Wagyu beef. This is raised in Japan at Kagoshima Farms or Miyazaki Gyu.

Who Should Use Crowd Cow?

Crowd Cow could be a good fit for you if you fall into any of these categories.

People Who Want Premium Meats

Crowd Cow features a wide variety of sustainably sourced meats, including grass-fed beef, wild-caught seafood, organic free-range chicken, and pastured pork. 

Additionally, they sell high-end Japanese Wagyu beef.

If you’re looking for premium quality meats or high-end cuts, Crowd Cow is a good choice. It’s also excellent for people on an all-meat carnivore diet since the meat is high-quality.

People Who Cook Large Meals

The service is great for large families or bulk purchases. In fact, it’s better to make orders totaling at least $125 so that you can unlock free shipping.

Plus, since there are no set subscription sizes, your box can be as large or small as you want.

Seafood Fans

Crowd Cow also has a nice selection of fish and shellfish, some of which are hard to find at stores unless you’re in an urban or coastal area.

This is great for pescatarians and seafood lovers, especially since you could create a meat subscription box filled only with seafood.

Stock Yards is a comparable service that also offers seafood. Read our review of Stock Yards to learn more.

Who Shouldn’t Use the Service?

On the other hand, Crowd Cow may not be a good fit for budget shoppers or plant-based eaters.

Budget-Conscious Shoppers

Crowd Cow’s high-quality meats come with a matching high price point. If you’re trying to save money, it may not be the best fit for your household. 

Their meats start at about $6 per pound for bone-in chicken, which is much pricier than store-bought meat. 

People Who Want Plant-Based Meat Substitutes

Although Crowd Cow offers a huge selection of meats, they don’t offer any plant-based meat substitutes. Consequently, the service isn’t appropriate for vegans or vegetarians.

If you’re looking for more plant-based options, a meal delivery kit service like Hungryroot may be a better fit.

Read our Hungryroot review to learn more about that service.

Is Crowd Cow Good Quality?

Crowd Cow meat is excellent in quality. Regardless of the farm you receive products from, you can expect:

• Grass-fed beef, often grain-finished
• Pastured pork
• Free-range chicken (some organic available)
• Sustainably farmed or wild-caught seafood

Additionally, your order will contain only meat and seafood without antibiotics or added hormones.

Pros and Cons

Here’s what to consider when evaluating this meat delivery company.

Pros:

• High-quality meats
• Subscription optional
• Offers sides and desserts
• Free shipping over $125
• Five percent discount for subscribing

Cons:

• More expensive than the grocery store
• Not a good fit for plant-based eaters

If you’re in the market for meat and seafood without antibiotics, the Crowd Cow home delivery service is worth trying.

Competition

Here’s how Crowd Cow measures up against other popular monthly subscription services for farm-fresh meat.

Good Chop

Good Chop is a meat delivery service that operates on a straightforward subscription model. You simply choose your box size and pick which items you’d like in the box. 

This allows for custom-built boxes each month from their selection of American, conventional or grass-fed Angus beef, chicken, pork, turkey, and fish.

Their medium box costs $149 for six selections, which provides up to 36 individual servings of meat. 

Good Chop’s prices break down per pound similarly to Crowd Cow, but Good Chop offers a much smaller selection that is exclusively raised in the United States.

Read our Good Chop review to learn more.

ButcherBox

ButcherBox is another subscription service for meat deliveries, but their main selling point is the quality of the meats they source. 

All of their beef is fully grass-fed (never grain-finished), all of their chicken and turkey are organic and pastured, and all of their fish and seafood are sustainable and wild-caught.

Their Custom Box costs $159 for six cuts of meat and provides about nine to 14 pounds of meat. 

They are similar in cost to Crowd Cow, but ButcherBox might be a better choice if you want the absolute highest-quality meat possible without needing to browse around the site.

*Now until June 30th, Frugal Rules readers can get 2 packs of ground beef FREE in every box for a year with your new membership!

Read our ButcherBox review to learn more.

Porter Road

Porter Road offers one-time purchases and subscription boxes. They specialize in pasture-raised meats from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania.

The meat is restaurant-quality, and the Porter Road team has close relationships with the farms they source from.

Their subscription boxes start at $115 for eight pounds of meat, but they currently have no custom box options. This means that you’ll need to choose a curated box. 

Additionally, the only meats they offer are beef, pork, and chicken. For a wider selection, Crowd Cow may be a better choice.

Nevertheless, Porter Road is a good fit if you’re looking for high-quality, U.S.-raised beef, pork, or chicken.

Read our review of Porter Road to learn more.

Bottom Line

Crowd Cow offers meat deliveries and optional subscriptions that can be totally customized. You can choose from their huge selection of meats to build your box.

Plus, they offer premium options like Wagyu beef.

They are more expensive than buying at the grocery store. However, if the service fits your budget, then their humanely sourced meats may be a great addition to your meal planning line-up. 

What’s most important to you when choosing a meat delivery box?