Why We'll Never Be the Next ButcherBox (And Why That's the Point)

Sunday around 1pm the farm phoneline started to ring.

Normally I try to disconnect on the weekends (since we aren't "open").

Or at least keep the conversations short and sweet.

But my kid was sleeping, my wife was nap-trapped, and I was looking for ANYTHING to do that wasn't clean the kitchen….

So I decided to break my weekend rule and chat it up.

I had a great conversation with a new customer who was really curious about how we do things (and the relative merits of Bovine Artificial Insemination vs. turning out a bull and getting things done the old fashioned way).

Towards the end of it, she asked me how big we want the business to get

Specifically, she asked if we wanted to be the next Butcher Box.

For reference, Butcher Box appears to do somewhere between $500 MILLION and 1 BILLION dollars in sales every year.

And we, in case you were wondering, are somewhat smaller.

Dirty Dog Farm vs ButcherBox: where we actually want to grow

Now, I want our business to grow for a lot of reasons....

I'd love some of the efficiencies that come with being bigger than we are.

We want to preserve and heal more pastures, and nourish more families with incredible 100% Grass Fed Beef.

We really want a business that's big enough for amazing people to work here and grow and develop and support their families and live great lives.

And personally I would LOOOOOOOOVE an excuse to buy an old Kenworth W900 because we have SO much hay and beef and cattle to move around all the time, and get to drive it around town with my daughter and pretend we're in Smokey and the Bandit and crank Jerry Reed up to 11…..

Big goals folks.

But I suspect those lofty aspirations fall short of what it takes to become the next unicorn ecom biz.

I've never met whoever owns ButcherBox

I've never met Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or whoever owns Butcher Box, but I'm given to believe their ambitions were slightly different than ours.

Also I realize it's wildly unfair to lump someone selling pretty good beef (even if it is from Australia) in with people who seem determined to ruin literally everything from our attention span to whole swaths of land within the blast radius of their data centers….. Sorry Butcher Box!

And I guaran-f***ing-tee you that none of them EVER take the time to drive a 50 year old Big Rig around with their children and make up ridiculous CB Radio handles.

To which I ask, what even is the point of being a billionaire these days? Seriously, can just one of them be eccentric in a fun way?

Anyhow…..

What you lose when a small farm becomes a billion-dollar brand

I think you CAN run a great large business, but I also believe you inevitably lose something. Or some things:

• The individual, concierge style service that Nicole provides.
• The personal connection where you just pick up the phone on a Sunday and spend 20 minutes talking to your farmer about cow sex. (people value that, right? right?)
• Quality of life for US. I don't want to oversee shipping containers full of beef every week. Sounds terrible. We like moving cows and making hay and occasionally spending an afternoon working on a truck or something.
• And of course, quality control. What happens when they don't have enough high quality cattle to fill this week's shipping containers, but ALL those subscriptions need to be filled? I wonder…..

ButcherBox alternatives that aren't trying to be ButcherBox

Anyway, there's not really a POINT to this.

Just thought you might find it interesting, since I've been on a little "we're going to win" kick lately and winning means different things to different folks.

We're certainly growing with no plan to slow down. But the day will come and we intend to make it an intentional choice.

If you've been weighing Dirty Dog Farm vs ButcherBox, the short version is: we're a single farm in upstate New York, raising our own cattle on our own pastures, processing locally, and selling directly to families in the Northeast. ButcherBox is a brand that sources beef (much of it from Australia) and ships it nationally on a subscription. Both have a place. They are not the same product. (For the long version of why grass-finished, dry-aged, single-farm beef tastes different, see this.)

If that resonates with you. Here's how we can be your farmers....

• Reserve a Beef Share (free freezer with Half or Whole)
• Place a Ready to Ship Order to try our beef or restock
• Read more about why people choose Dirty Dog Farm over everyone else

Your Farmer,
Josh

P.S. Don't forget, next week is the last shipping day before Labor Day, so hit the Ready to Ship selection and stock up on everything you need for a beautiful long weekend of grill-maxxing.