What Is a Meat Share — and Is It Right for You?

As meat prices keep climbing, everyone’s looking for a deal. And Costco isn’t the only place to find a bulk discount. Many farmers will sell a meat share — a quarter, a half, or even a whole animal — which can reduce costs for both sides.

“Bulk meat sales are good for farmers because they move lots of meat in one sale, saving the farmer time. Bulk meat sales are good for customers because we offer a bulk buying discount due to the time savings,” says Nick Weinstock, owner-operator of BOTL Farm in Ashford, Connecticut, which primarily raises pigs.

How does a meat share work?

Buying a meat share generally involves a few steps: finding a seller, making the purchase, picking up the slaughtered animal, and filling out a cut sheet, which is a breakdown of how you want the animal literally broken down into cuts. For example, you can specify the types of steaks you’d like or the leanness of your ground meat.

Some farmers will break down the animal for you; if not, you’ll need to find a butcher who offers that service, which will cost extra. The price can vary wildly from farm to farm and state to state, but if you purchase a whole cow that yields 650 pounds of butchered meat to stash in your freezer, it might cost around $8 per pound for a total of $5,200.

Some farmers have to get creative to work around laws limiting meat shares. Restrictions at the USDA slaughterhouse Weinstock uses prevent him from technically selling a half or whole animal, but he’ll happily customize a box of cuts based on your specifications or budget.

Good Meat Project, a first-of-its-kind nonprofit focused on advancing the ethical meat supply chain, is an excellent source for finding farms that offer meat shares and butchers who break them down. Simply use the organization’s Good Meat Finder map, selecting the Bulk Animal Shares filter under Purchasing Options.

Among other resources, the nonprofit also offers information on how much freezer space you might need to store hundreds of pounds of meat and what cuts you should order.

Along with being a value-driven way to buy meat, buying in bulk can save you money and taste better. But does a cow or pig share make sense for you? Here’s everything to know. 

Pros of a meat share

As Weinstock points out, bulk meat sales offer obvious economic advantages to small farmers and customers. If you can afford to invest up front to save money long-term, meat shares can also help you reap rewards such as improved flavor and traceability. Consider the following benefits when planning your purchases.

Saving money

Buying bulk from a small farmer isn’t guaranteed to save you money on every cut, but considering a share of a cow includes everything from ground beef and bones to short rib and steaks, the per-pound rate averages out favorably to many grocery store prices.

“For a whole animal, I pay under $8 a pound for everything all in, and that’s with paying the farmer, paying the butcher, my gas, [and] my cost to run my freezers,” says Michele Thorn, executive director of Good Meat Project, who’s based in Oregon.

Animal welfare and better flavor

Weinstock’s meat is certified grass-fed and Animal Welfare Approved by A Greener World, raised according to what he calls “ridiculously high animal and environmental welfare standards.”

Thorn also points out that the taste of place or terroir of animals that have grazed in a more natural way is much more vibrant than those fed industrial corn and soy. “So many producers send their pigs to the forest to eat acorns and hazelnuts. I mean, we’re the hazelnut capital of the world in Oregon, and that helps form the really delicious fat on the animal.”

Traceability

As recalls of contaminated food rise, one way to mitigate your risk is to know where your food comes from. “Buying at the grocery store, you’re getting hundreds of animals in your ground meat. Buying in bulk is traceable: There’s one animal. I knew the farmer,” says Thorn.

Supporting the local economy

“You are supporting the local economy where you live by purchasing directly from the farmer. Those dollars go directly to the farmer and directly to the butcher,” says Thorn. “That purchase stays in the community. It hires local workers.”

Is a meat share for you?

A meat share isn’t for everyone. If you don’t eat much meat or don’t have a ton of freezer space, for example, you might decide to stick with smaller purchases. Here are some common concerns and potential solutions to consider.

Upfront cost

“Not everybody wants to buy all their meat at once. Sometimes for families that’s a lot of money to put out all at once,” says Thorn. “But there pare] other ways to look at it. You can save throughout the year to make this one-time purchase, kind of like the way that you would save for a house, or a car, or a vacation, right? And you can put it in an interest bearing account, so you’re actually making money towards that purchase.

Additionally, you can buy an animal in bulk with friends and family. When I was a kid, my parents used to buy huge meat boxes, and they would split it so that no one family had to bear the burden of the entire cost.”

Freezer space and organization

“For most people, it seems like having the space for a chest freezer, having a reliable power source for it, and buying/moving it into their house is too big of a hurdle,” says Weinstock, whose customers tend to buy in smaller amounts.

But a whole lamb is only 40 pounds, Thorn points out, and a half pig is similar. “Most people can deal with that in a regular family-size freezer.” If you’re buying a whole cow, which can easily weigh 650 pounds after butchering (“carcass weight”), a freezer is a necessary up-front investment. If you get a good one, “it might be 10 years before you have to do that again,” Thorn says.

Weinstock also suggests coming up with a way to organize and inventory your meat, such as putting packages in distinct pillowcases as he does (thanks to his mother’s thrifting habit) and using a dry erase board to note what’s in each.

“Customers should perhaps also consider buying a temperature-monitoring system or sensors so that they are notified if their power/freezer fails in some way, so they don’t lose all their investment in meat to spoilage.”

(In)convenience

If you expect to get endless steaks from a quarter of a cow, think again. “Some people want the New York strips and the T-bones, but you can only have both if you’re buying a whole animal, because you have two sides. You’re going to get a third of [the meat] ground because that’s just the way it is,” says Thorn. “And so we try to educate consumers on that too.”

While some farmers like Weinstock will customize a box for you simply based on a budget or a weight limit, not every farmer will break down your animal. In that case you’ll need to find a butcher, who will likely expect you to choose what cuts you want by filling out a cut sheet — which can be tricky if you’ve never done it before.

“I didn’t really know what I wanted until I did it the first time. I didn’t realize that I would rather have a one-and-a-half-pound ground beef pack than a one-pound,” says Thorn.

She also recognizes that such a big meat purchase can feel daunting because we’re used to having endless meat options on demand, stocked by someone else.

“One trade-off to buying in bulk is that for some people it’s more convenient to just go to the grocery store, get what they need, go home, and cook it,” she says. “But what’s more convenient than going to your freezer and pulling something out? When you have a freezer full of bulk meat you have essentially a grocery store at home.”