Customers can now have ‘high-end, artisan products’ delivered fresh to your door from BlackBox Meats

Stock image, St. George News

CONTRIBUTED CONTENT — If you’ve ever had to plan for a dinner party or just make dinner for the family, you understand that it can be difficult planning for everyone’s different preferences. To add on to that, when you go shopping for the fixings, you realize you are at the mercy of what the grocery store might have – or not have – in stock at the time.

Prime dry-age, bone-in New York strip from BlackBox Meats, location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of BlackBox Meats, St. George News

These moments of frustration can finally be gone for good. With the new BlackBox Meats website, customers can order top-quality meats – previously only available at high-end “white tablecloth” eateries – direct from supplier and delivered fresh to your doorstep in Southern Utah.

“It’s all high-end, artisan products,” said Jeff Pugh, CEO of BlackBox Meats and Freedom Meats, the premier boutique meat supplier in the Las Vegas valley.

Pugh, a 20-year veteran of the food service industry, is passionate about connecting people together through great food. Since 2014, he has been disrupting the local meat industry, and with his latest endeavor he’s hoping to change the way consumers buy meat and become the industry leader in an emerging on-demand economy.

Historically, meat companies have had a very traditional operation – all food services, restaurants, hotels, schools and fine-dining establishments. Pugh knew they carried the best products on the market at Freedom Meats, but he wanted to find a way to make them available to everyone to enjoy at home.

BlackBox Meats’ online ordering platform connects consumers to cuts of meat usually reserved for high-end restaurant chefs. Tomahawk chops, prime filets, dry-aged Porterhouse, lobster tails, pork tenderloins, lamb chops and boneless chicken breasts are some of the meats they carry for your family to enjoy.

Lobster tail available to order from BlackBox Meats, location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of BlackBox Meats, St. George News

“Everybody wants what they want, and they want it now. Essentially, you can create your own custom dinner,” Pugh said. “You’re sitting at home, you’ve got six friends coming over, and you can choose a different steak for each person. To get an A5 6-ounce Japanese Wagyu delivered to your house is pretty remarkable.”

Pugh said a customer will never walk into a fancy restaurant and ask the chef where they got their meats and hear they were bought from a big box retailer that monopolizes the market and control what cuts of meat a consumer can purchase. 

“They buy them from specialty meat companies, because that’s what we do. We buy it. We age it properly for a long time. We’ve got inventory with a minimum four or five weeks on everything in this building before we even put a knife to it,” he explained. “It’s fresh, it’s on demand and it’s what you can’t get at a grocery store. There are no minimums, and you literally are able to create a very neat dining experience with all of your friends and family.”

Deliveries are made six days a week from Las Vegas, and if orders are submitted by 6 p.m. PST (7 p.m. MST), they will arrive between 9 a.m. and noon the next day to any address within 20 miles of St. George.

“We cut it fresh, and it’s shipped out,” Pugh said, adding that once the order is complete, the customer can receive push notifications to let them know the status of their order. They will be notified when the driver picks up their purchase at Freedom Meats and then be notified once the order is on its way.

“You’re in tune every step of the way with what’s happening with your order.”

Domestic Wagyu eye of the rib roast available to order from BlackBox Meats, location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of BlackBox Meats, St. George News

Pugh said it’s almost a race right now because of what happened with the COVID-19 shutdown. The website has been in the works for the past eight months, but once the local food industry dropped to zero, they decided to pivot their plans. Within the next couple of weeks, customers are going to be able to download an iOS or Android version of the website to make ordering even simpler.

“The vision has always been to make it an app where someone can be sitting there at home and order a high-end fresh steak and have it delivered to their house.”

Pugh said they just launched in Irvine, California, and will launch May 4 in Seattle, Washington. When the timing is right, Pugh said they plan to move farther north into Utah toward Salt Lake.

“I truly believe it is going to change the way people buy high-end cut steaks.”

For more information, visit the Freedom Meats website, and order today at BlackBox Meats online here.

•  S P O N S O R E D    C O N T E N T  •

Written by ANDREW PINCKNEY, St. George News

Email: apinckney@stgnews.com

Twitter: @STGnews 

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

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