The simple version
Grassfed.ie is a marketplace bringing together Ireland's best independent grass-fed butchers. You order through grassfed.ie. The butcher you choose cuts and ships your order direct from their shop. We take a small commission (10–13%); the butcher gets the rest. Branded packaging, unified checkout, national reach — without forcing every butcher to build their own ecommerce stack.
Why a marketplace, not a single brand
The obvious commercial path for a domain like this is a single direct-to-consumer brand — own the supply, own the brand, own the margin. We considered it. We chose against it for three reasons:
- Ireland already has the supply. There are dozens of small independent Irish butchers cutting genuinely excellent grass-fed beef, supplied by farms they know personally. We don't need to build a competing supply chain. We need to give the existing supply chain a national digital shop window.
- Independent butchers are closing. The Irish butcher count has been declining for two decades — squeezed between supermarket scale and rising costs. A platform that grows their reach, rather than competing with them, is structurally on the right side of that trend.
- Provenance is the moat. A central DTC brand has to choose: be transparent about where the beef actually comes from (farm names, butcher names) or use opaque supply-chain marketing. The marketplace model makes provenance the default — every box has a real butcher's name on it.
The trade-off is gross margin. We earn 10–13% commission on each order rather than the 40–50% gross margin of a centralised DTC brand. We think the network effects, the lower capital requirement, and the alignment with the existing Irish food economy are worth it.
What we're not
- We don't run a farm. Our partner butchers source from real Irish farms they have direct relationships with — usually within their county.
- We don't run a butchery. Cutting, packing, dispatch happens at the partner butcher's premises. We never touch the meat.
- We don't compete with our partners' shops. Customers who reorder direct from a partner butcher's shop are a win for the platform, not a loss. The butcher's relationship with the customer is the asset; we're a discovery layer.
- We don't aggregate supply for cost-arbitrage. We list each butcher individually. Customers buying via the rotating "Grassfed Box" subscription get a different butcher each month — surprise + variety, not commodified consolidation.
What we are
- An ordering and discovery layer. Browse butchers, browse cuts, subscribe or buy one-off, all through one checkout.
- Branded packaging that signals "this is a grass-fed Irish box" without erasing the butcher's identity.
- The marketing and customer-acquisition engine that individual butchers don't have time to build.
- A unified quality bar — we admit butchers we'd buy from ourselves.
The team
Grassfed.ie is being built in 2026 as part of a small Irish portfolio of editorial and platform sites. We sit in the same broader project that runs themarketingpod.ie (digital-marketing journal), tailored.ie (bespoke-tailoring directory), and a handful of other Irish-niche directories. The portfolio principle is the same across all of them: comprehensive, opinionated, useful Irish editorial that respects the people in the underlying industry.
The principles
- Real names. Butchers are named. Farms are named where the butcher knows them. No anonymous supply chains; no marketing-fiction brands.
- Lower commission than the marketplace average. 10–13% is below the typical multi-vendor marketplace rate. This is deliberate — we'd rather have engaged, profitable partners than maximise extraction.
- No exclusive lock-in. Partner butchers stay free to sell through their own channels and walk-in. The platform should be additive to their existing business, never a substitute.
- Transparent disclosure. When commercial relationships affect editorial placement, we say so. Featured-butcher rotation is on a fair-share basis. Paid promotional placements (when we offer them) are clearly tagged.
Where we are right now
This site is the founding-phase version — recruiting partner butchers, building the customer waitlist. Customer launch is planned for later in 2026 once 4–6 founding partners are signed and onboarded. If you're a butcher interested in partnering, the partnership pitch is here. If you're a customer who'd like to be among the first to order, join the waitlist.
Get in touch
For partnership enquiries, customer questions, press, or anything else — contact us or email hello@grassfed.ie.