Convenience and quality typically come at a price, but every once in a while we stumble across a service that delivers both and offers savings, too. Meal kits are one example.
We dig the service, as evidenced by our full review here, but is ButcherBox also cheaper than a grocery store?
To find out, I did the math to see how much an average shipment of ButcherBox’s premium meats cost if you were to buy the same — or very similar — meats at a midrange grocery store like Wegman’s.
After crunching the numbers for three months of shipments, I found that ButcherBox offers significant savings versus the same organic and grass-fed meats when bought from a brick-and-mortar market. If you include the cost of ButcherBox’s promotional gift (three pounds of organic chicken in every box for a year,) ButcherBox is a full 15% cheaper.
ButcherBox vs. Wegman’s
ButcherBox Curated Plan
Same meats purchased from Wegman’s
$146 per month
$170.72 per month
As good as that sounds, ButcherBox still might not be the cheaper option for everyone. (Don’t worry, I’ll explain.)
Here’s how we did the math and exactly how expensive — or inexpensive — ButcherBox is compared with buying quality meats at a grocery store.
What is ButcherBox?
ButcherBox salmon is all wild-caught.
ButcherBox
ButcherBox also includes only humanely raised pork and wild-caught seafood in its boxes. If you’ve held a package of wild, caught salmon up against a filet of farmed salmon, surely you’ve noticed the difference in color and quality — but also price.
As someone who has covered the food business for more than five years, I’ve learned which designations matter and which ones don’t. ButcherBox focuses on sourcing meat with grades and standards that promote sustainable farming and humane treatment of animals, all resulting in better meat. ButcherBox is proud of its high standards and outlines them in great detail here.
How much does ButcherBox cost?
ButcherBox has two plans: A custom box of meats chosen by you, or a curated box in which the selection is left up to them. For curated plans, you’ll receive a box every 30, 60, 90 or 120 days with a mix of ground beef, steaks, pork cuts, organic chicken pieces (mostly boneless,) and the occasional cut of bison or other red meat.
Organic chicken thighs cost $7.89 at Wegman’s.
Screenshot by David Watsky/CNET
I tallied up the items from the three months of ButcherBox’s and curated plan: January 2024, December 2023 and November 2023. When finding a match at Wegman’s, I used the cheapest option for each item. For instance, if the ButcherBox shipment included a 3-pound package of organic chicken breast, I used the cheapest per-pound option of organic chicken breast available at Wegman’s.
If an item was on sale at Wegman’s, I use the discounted sale price since that’s a perk of grocery store shopping. I made these calculations on Feb. 7, 2024. I used Wegman’s direct pricing, not a third-party delivery vendor such as Instacart or DoorDash since they often have inflated prices.
So is ButcherBox as good a deal as it seems? For some, it is.
Grass-fed ribeye at Wegman’s is about $32 per pound. If you typically buy a few premium cuts of beef each month, you’ll get them for much cheaper through a ButcherBox subscription. If you don’t, ButcherBox may end up costing you more.
Screenshot by David Watsky/CNET
If you aren’t as particular about the type of meat you cook and eat, ButcherBox may end up being the more expensive option. While I didn’t run the numbers for non-organic poultry, non-grass-fed beef and non-humanely-raised pork, those varieties of meats are significantly cheaper than the higher-quality cuts included in ButcherBox’s deliveries. Even with the free monthly gift, ButcherBox would be a more expensive option than most supermarkets.
If the quality of the meat matters, and likewise, the treatment of animals during production, ButcherBox will not only save you time and effort versus a trip to the supermarket, it can save you real money, too.
