Best 3 Meat Subscription Boxes [+ How To Manage Yours]

If you already sell high-quality meat online, offering a meat subscription box could be a great source of recurring revenue. 

But simply offering a subscription isn’t a guarantee for success. You need to create a subscription box that encapsulates what makes you unique. Still stuck? Sometimes, it’s helpful to look at established businesses for inspiration. 

In this article, we’ll look at our favorite meat subscription boxes, what you can learn from them, and give you an overview of how you can manage your own.

Related Read: How To Sell Beef Off the Farm: 6 Best Practices

What Makes a Meat Subscription Box Stand Out?

If you’re thinking of offering meat subscription boxes, it’s important to know what draws people to them in the first place.

• Variety: Popular meat subscription boxes offer various cuts and types of meat.
• Quality: People won’t pay to regularly receive average meat — they expect meat that is high-quality and ethically sourced. 
• Value: Most meat subscriptions aren’t cheap and will probably cost more than going to a grocery store — but they should still provide good value for the quality.
• Curation: Many people enjoy food subscriptions because they can try out new foods and get expert recommendations.
• Convenience: A meat subscription takes the hassle out of going to a store and picking out great meat. Instead, you can deliver it frozen or ready-to-eat right to customers’ doors.

No matter what form your subscription takes, make sure it ticks all these boxes.

3 Great Meat Subscriptions (+ Key Takeaways for Your Business)

If you need inspiration for your meat subscription boxes, here are three great companies to look at.

1. ButcherBox

ButcherBox is one of the most popular meat subscription boxes for a good reason. Much of its appeal comes from its no-nonsense approach, offering delivery monthly or every other month at an affordable price. They tend to offer high-quality replacements for what you’d get at a grocery store instead of specialty cuts. 

ButcherBox works with a collection of farms and meat suppliers, so it can work at a scale and offer free shipping that may be out of reach for smaller businesses. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some lessons to take away from their success.

Takeaways

• Let customers choose: ButcherBox offers various boxes (just beef, beef and chicken, etc.) you can choose from monthly. This isn’t a bad model for farms or independent meat shops, allowing you to give customers more choice while leaving you some flexibility when selecting cuts. Just make sure your e-commerce solution is flexible enough to weigh out and create custom orders.
• Lure in customers with promotions: Another valuable lesson from ButcherBox’s success is its effective use of promotions and offers for new customers. These are great tools to get an on-the-fence customer to take the leap. For example, you could offer any regular subscriber 50% off bacon. Or, you could create subscriber-only discounts and deals.

2. Rastelli’s

Rastelli’s started as a local butcher shop and has been in operation for over 40 years, marketing themselves as “America’s Personal Butcher.” They offer a mix of curated boxes or give customers the option to build custom boxes. 

They proudly share their story with their customers all over the website, which is a great lesson for any small meat business. Remember, if people want meat from a faceless store, they’ll go to a big supermarket. Most people looking to buy from a small business like yours want to know your story and what sets you apart, something your website should proudly showcase.

Takeaways

• Show off your expertise: Rostelli’s sets itself apart by focusing on its expertise as a family-owned butcher shop and its dedication to ethically sourced, high-quality meat. For a small food business, your About page might be just as (if not more) effective than a great-looking product page to highlight your business and build brand awareness.
  
• Be creative with curation: Many meat subscription boxes offer simple choices like a beef or chicken box. Rastelli’s stands apart with creative boxes like the Kid-Approved Box or the Weekend Essentials box. Use your e-commerce solution to mix and match complementary items and showcase your creativity.

3. Porter Road

Porter Road sells single cuts of beef, chicken, pork, and sausage as well as curated subscription boxes. Unlike others on this list, their subscriptions focus less on choice and variety, but the careful curation of these boxes makes them stand out. 

As a small business, you may not have the inventory to offer monthly custom subscriptions. A curated subscription box gives you the flexibility to surprise customers and manage your inventory more effectively.

Takeaways

• Use recommendations: Choice is essential, but for customers who are used to shopping primarily at a supermarket, it can be intimidating. Curating boxes reassures customers that they’re only getting the best, while potentially introducing them to new cuts they wouldn’t go for otherwise. Porter Road also has a filter on its product pages for staff recommendations, a great tool to point customers towards less popular (but delicious) cuts.
• Include recipes: Many people shy away from a meat subscription box because they don’t know what to do with all that meat. Include recipes on your site for the items in your box to get them started. You could include some recipes in the box or build up a collection of recipes on your website in the form of a blog. 

5 Steps To Managing Meat Subscription Boxes

Here are the basic steps to set up and manage a successful meat subscription box.

Step 1: Use a Compatible E-Commerce Solution

Subscriptions are an excellent way for meat sellers to build recurring revenue. Unfortunately, not all e-commerce solutions are built to handle them.

To successfully offer a meat subscription box on your website, your e-commerce solution must have a few specific features. 

• Built-in subscription support: Use an e-commerce solution that supports managing subscriptions without an add-on or third-party integration. 
• Sell by weight: E-commerce with sell by weight features lets you easily sell catch-weight items and update an order with exact weights at the time of fulfillment.
• Payment authorization: If your subscription service isn’t fixed price, you’ll need a way to capture and store payment information to charge when the box is ready.
• Flexible product configuration: Make curation easy without creating an inventory nightmare with a system that supports configuring multi-SKU bundles.
• Advanced inventory management: Track inventory in real time to avoid stockouts, easily prepare orders, and see how much weight is left in stock.

Some platforms allow you to pay for food-specific add-ons or integrate with other programs. We recommend using an e-commerce platform that includes all the features you need to cut down on subscription costs and complexity.

Step 2: Choose a Subscription Model

There are many ways to offer meat subscriptions to customers. The most common are:

• Curated boxes and gift boxes (e.g., a selection of sausages or steaks)
• Custom boxes (e.g., customers choose up to 15 lbs of whatever meat they want)
• Replenishment (e.g., buy three packs of chicken breast and have it shipped to you every month)

There’s no right or wrong type of subscription — pick one that’s a good fit for your business. 

Pro tip: If you sell single items and boxes, offering a slight discount for subscriptions is a good idea. Some e-commerce tools let customers subscribe and save before they add an item to their cart — an effective upselling tool. 

Boxes can also be either a fixed or variable price. Many subscription services at a fixed price offer a range of weights (e.g., 10-15 lbs) to ensure boxes with more expensive cuts remain profitable.

Step 3: Decide on Shipping Frequency and Distance

Next, determine how often you want to ship your subscription box and how far you’ll ship it. Cold shipping partners for fresh food tend to be more expensive to use than standard shipping, and sometimes shipping nationwide isn’t worth the added cost.

Use your e-commerce solution to set up shipping regions and automatically assign a shipping method based on the customer’s zip code. Many subscription boxes offer free shipping, but that may only be worth it for high-value orders.

Step 4: Use Appropriate Packaging

A vital part of a subscription box is, well, the box. Find packaging that both shows off your brand and is food-safe. One easy way to do this is to have an outer branded box and include the more practical insulated packing material inside it. 

Use insulated box liners and find eco-friendly packing materials, as many consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products. 

If you include receipts, recipes, or other printed information inside the box, make sure it’s adequately packaged or moisture-resistant. You’ll be using cold packs or other materials to keep the food fresh, which will wreak havoc on plain paper.

Step 5: Market Your Subscription Box

There are many fresh food subscription services, and online grocery deliveries have made the space even more competitive. While we wish it wasn’t the case, simply producing fantastic quality meat won’t be enough to grow your business and reach new customers (at least not at first). 

To stand out, you’ll need to develop a solid marketing strategy. Here’s how to start:

• Email and newsletters: While it might seem old-fashioned, emails are still a highly effective marketing tool. Write a regular newsletter highlighting what makes your products unique and include discounts and offers.
• Social media: With millions of active users, social media is a great way to showcase your products. The key to mastering social media is posting regularly and being personable. Show some friendly faces and reply to comments and reviews — good or bad.
• Promotions and discounts: Offering discounts or promotions for new customers is a great way to target on-the-fence visitors. You can also keep the good times rolling by giving meat box subscribers exclusive discounts on other products.
• Website: Try not to see your website as just a product page or a means to an end. A user-friendly and welcoming website will go a long way to educating people about your brand and what makes you unique.

Regardless of your marketing strategies, make sure to track their success. Use the reports on your e-commerce solution to see which promotions and discounts worked and which fell flat. This will help you get a better return on investment (ROI) later.  

Create a Unique Meat Subscription Box For Your Business Using GrazeCart 

You’ve got a great idea for a meat subscription box, so what are you waiting for? With the right tools and marketing, subscription boxes are a fantastic source of recurring revenue. 

If you’re still not sure how to get started, we can help. GrazeCart comes with everything you need to manage a meat subscription box, including:

• No-code website builder
• Sell by weight functions
• Built-in subscription support
• Marketing and communication features
• Advanced inventory management

We specifically work with small to mid-size meat markets, farms, and grocers to simplify fresh food sales online. Try out a free 14-day trial of GrazeCart today, or speak with one of our experts.