As stated on another thread, the wife and I are doing the Ketogenic life style. This life style emphasizes pasture raised, grass fed, grass finished beef and diary over the grain fed factory type. We've been to Trader Joes, Wholes Foods and other merchants, and this kind of beef is very, very pricey (over $20 lb.). Even looked at Butcher Box mail order subscription service, and we're still at $15 to $17 per lb.
So, I thinking the other day, and I remember a country butcher shop out in the boondocks that my dearly departed brother and my BIL would take their deer to for processing. Sure enough, they carry a large selection of local pasture raised, grass fed, grass finished beef for only 75 cents a lb. more then their grain fed beef. Ground beef for under $5 and steaks and roasts for as little as $6 - $7 a lb. We also picked up their home made pork sausage (hot Italian and bulk breakfast) made from locally raised hogs. This was some of the best pork sausage we have ever tried. We've also tried the grass fed beef, and it tastes much cleaner and has a better flavor then the meat we would buy at the warehouse clubs.
The down side is that our house has been on the market since November, so we hope to be moving soon. Hopefully we will be able to find a butcher shop like this one in the NC mountains.
On a side note, the butcher shop is currently raising their own, free range heritage black hogs, on a pasture behind the shop. We could reserve a whole, half or quarter for $4 and under per lb., but they won't be ready till late June, when hopefully, we'll be in NC for good. Bummer.
David