Meat at Your Door

Meat CSAs

With vegetable CSAs you get freshly harvested produce from a farm. Meat CSAs do the same thing with meat.

Farms tend to slaughter their animals seasonally, then freeze and store the meat until it goes into your box. Meat CSAs are a good option for city dwellers with limited freezer space; subscribers can order as little as five pounds of meat a month, depending on the supplier. But as with vegetable CSAs, you get what the farm has. “I try to vary the cuts,” says Kate Stillman of Massachusetts-based Stillman’s, which services Boston. “They may get pork three months in a row, but one month it’ll be bacon, the next country-style ribs.” You usually do not get offal unless you’ve asked for it.

To find out if there are any meat CSAs in your area, talk to local producers (partial lists of producers of grass-fed, organic, and humanely raised meat can be found at If a producer you like doesn’t have a CSA, suggest starting one.