Crowd Cow: experiment end
The other day I received what I think will be my last Crowd Cow box. There’s a few reasons for this:
- I want to cut down on my meat consumption
- Crowd Cow has gotten a lot more expensive, especially compared to supermarket prices
The most recent box was particularly expensive. Here’s a cost breakdown, similar to last time.
All prices are per pound unless otherwise specified, and using the closest equivalents when identical items aren’t available.
| Item | Crowd cow | QFC |
|---|---|---|
| Flank steak | $25 | $15 |
| Chicken breast | $15 | $5.50 |
| Ground pork | $12 | $5.50 |
| Sirloin steak | $26 | $14 |
| Garlic basil sausage | $15 | $8 (equiv) |
| Pork chops | $14 | $7.30 |
| Hot Italian sausage | $12 | $4-8 |
| Beef hot dogs | $12 | $8 |
| Kielbasa | $11.40 | $3.40 |
| Ground beef | $141 | $11 |
| Filet mignon | $522 | $26 |
My most recent box cost a total of $162, when buying the same stuff at QFC would have cost about half as much, and also the only reason I even bought so much meat is because the Crowd Cow model makes it pretty much necessary to.
Early on I appreciated how Crowd Cow gave me a wide variety of things to work with and which encouraged me to experiment with cooking different things, but nowadays it seems to just be steaks and pork chops and such, and it’s also vastly overpriced for what you get, and I’m being encouraged to buy a lot more meat than I normally would for the sake of shipping and “loyalty.” They’ve also stopped carrying most of the products I enjoyed.
So, yeah, I think my time with them as a customer has come to an end.
After I’ve managed to work my way through all the meat in my freezer (which will take me quite some time at this point) I think any meat I do buy in the future will be at Costco or Chef'store in the form of primal cuts that I butcher myself.