Honest Crowd Cow Review

Looking for high-quality meat with transparency? Read this honest Crowd Cow review to see if it’s the answer to your meat buying needs.

Before I start this review, this is not sponsored. I did get a gift card to order some items so I could take photos for this post but all thoughts are my own. 

I grew up eating grass-fed beef from a local farm. My family would buy a share of a cow and we’d go to that farm to pick it up. I got used to that kind of transparency and quality.

It’s still important to me to get high-quality meat and know where it comes from. I used to get a lot of my meat from a local co-op but it sadly closed.

I still get a lot of beef from a local family-owned farm that delivers it to my house. It’s great and I love supporting a farm that I know treats their animals with respect and takes pride in their products.

Other meat has been harder to come by though and I usually turn to Whole Foods, which is 85 miles away. That is until I discovered Crowd Cow.

My Crowd Cow Review

Recently my husband found and introduced me to Crow Cow. It’s an online store where you can buy high-quality meat from small farms. And they give full transparency.

You get to read all about the farms and how the meat was raised. Details you will never get in a grocery store. You are able to pick meat that fits your values. 

Crowd Cow was created after one of the co-founders was in an upscale grocery store picking up steaks and wondering where it was from and why it cost so much.

His friend then told him how he bought beef directly from local farms and how great it was. This is like the experience I had growing up but as is common he found it’s hard to find a good ranch, coordinate payment and pick up, and the idea of having that much beef at once was too much.

That’s how Crowd Cow started, it’s like crowdfunding but for meat. If 50 people each buy a small amount of the beef from the farm then no one has to have a lot at once but you still get the benefits of buying straight from a farm.

We’ve been ordering for a while now and are big fans. So much so that I’m now a brand ambassador for Crowd Cow. This is not a paid review but I was given a gift card to order some products so I could give you photos of the process. These are my totally honest thoughts.

How Crowd Cow Works

1. Sign up for an account. 
2. Search for the type of meat you are looking for. They carry beef, chicken, pork, lamb, bison, and seafood currently. 
3. Read about the farms and choose the one you like.
4. Order your meat and pick your delivery date from the options given. Be sure to use the promo code RETROHOUSEWIFE to save 5% Off every box with a subscription. 
5. Enjoy!

Pros of Crowd Cow

• You can read about the farm where your food was raised. You also get the name of the farm so you can do extra research if needed.
• The prices are very reasonable for the quality of meat. You are cutting out some of the middlemen so you get a better price than you would for the same product at a grocery store.
• The quality is the best I’ve found. We have had nothing but amazing products from Crowd Cow.
• They let you pick a delivery date. This is important with frozen meat. The days are limited to make sure it’s shipped quickly but there are options. 
• They use dry ice to keep everything cold. My FedEx guy refuses to knock or ring the doorbell even when the package clearly says that it is perishable. Thankfully they pack the boxes full of dry ice which keeps everything very cold. We haven’t had any issues even during our 90+ degree days.
• They use eco-friendly packaging. The packing they use is largely recyclable or biodegradable. They even give you instructions for the best way to dispose of the items.

Update from August 2020, I’m still using Crowd Cow. With the current situation, we haven’t been going to grocery stores often and Crowd Cow has helped with that. We have a freezer full of meat from them right now. 

Cons of Crowd Cow

• It is not cheap. You are getting what you pay for but it’s not going to fit into all budgets. I cut costs in other places and we eat smaller amounts of meat to make up for this. I also feel that meat is a place it’s good to spend a bit more.
• There is a $50 minimum. I have no problem with this because we just order less often to make sure we meet the minimum. 
• You need to spend $99+ for free shipping. Given the weight, need for dry ice, and faster shipping it’s not cheap. We do a couple of things to try and always get free shipping. We order for longer periods of times and sometimes we also check to see if our in-laws want anything and combine our orders.
• They don’t always have what you are looking for. The selection is huge but right now they don’t have turkey which we eat from time to time. I’ve heard rumors on their social media of more things coming. They also run out of things sometimes but generally, I’ve found a perfectly found replacement. 

Overall I love this service. I have an order on the way right now and I have some ground beef thawing in the fridge for tonight’s dinner of onion burgers, one of our favorites.

We have especially loved the wagyu burgers this summer for grilling. They are the best burgers we’ve made at home and we love to grill a lot on hot summer days so we don’t heat up the kitchen.

If you have any questions at all be sure to leave them in the comments below. If I can’t answer your question I will reach out and get the answer for you.

Ready to try out Crowd Cow? Use the promo code RETROHOUSEWIFE to get 5% off of every box with a subscription.