Detroit, MI | Butcher Shop & Restaurant | Provisions Packs (Meat Subscription)

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Key results

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• 100% growth in Provisions Pack sales since partnering with Table22
• Higher-margin product system, developed from cuts that used to go straight to the grinder
• Zero back-end lift, with Table22 handling the full member cycle so the team can focus on curation and guest relationships

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Finally, a house of their own

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Marrow Detroit Provisions started in 2018 as a butcher counter inside Marrow's West Village restaurant, sharing space, staff, and too little elbow room with the kitchen team next door. This past November, that changed. The company opened a 14,000-square-foot facility in Eastern Market, giving the butcher team a floor built for them with full-scale processing equipment and room to expand their whole-animal butchery practice.

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"We're just so excited to expand our operation and grow our partnerships with our local food community and local farmers here in Michigan," says Cody Shintoski, Head Butcher and Director of Sales and Production. "Sharing space with chefs can be slightly challenging, especially when there's a lot of knives around."

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The cost of doing it right

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When asked about what he wishes more people knew about his business, Cody talks about understanding the choice behind Marrow's pricing. It would be easier and cheaper to source from large-scale meat producers, and skip the in-house butchers entirely (the way most shops do) to keep costs down. Instead, the team hires skilled butchers, builds direct relationships with regional farms, and breaks down whole animals on site.

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"It's difficult to do things the way we're doing it, where we're focused on sustainability and local food systems," he says. "It'd be a lot easier if we were just going to the big guys. We highlight that as the reason some of these things come with a slightly higher price tag, because of all the ways we're going above and beyond for the customer and for the local food system."

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A philosophy around constant improvement in the product, the systems, and the way the team treats customers, shapes everything Marrow builds, including their monthly club.

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Championing the cuts nobody reaches for

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Provisions Packs, Marrow's monthly meat subscription, grew out of a simple goal: get the product into as many hands as possible. But the packs do something the retail case can't. Each month, Cody and the butcher team hand-select what goes in, including cuts that a customer walking up to the case might stroll right past.

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"When we're curating ourselves, we're telling customers, these are the things we enjoy eating, the cuts we like to show off," Cody says. Members try them, and the cuts stick. "I see our regular meat club members coming in and buying the cuts that were in the packs from months previous. They say themselves, we might not have used that cut, and now it's our favorite."

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That curation solves a problem every whole-animal butcher shop lives with: utilization. Cuts that don't move fast enough through the case often end up in the grind. The subscription gives those cuts another path. As an example, one month's pack included a soy-marinade steak tip built from exactly that kind of cut, developed as an alternative to sending it toward ground beef.

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"Instead of it just being ground beef, which we love, we can develop something like a marinated steak tip. I can make more money on that than I can on ground beef, so it works out better."

- Cody Shintoski, Head Butcher and Director of Sales and Production, Marrow Detroit

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The Table22 difference

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Marrow had run a club through other platforms before Table22, and Cody describes that experience in plain terms: more work, for less improvement. "It was almost more work dealing with the other platforms and trying to get them to do things we wanted to see in our club," he says. "With Table22, it's like they're coming to me and asking, can we start doing this, maybe this is how you can improve. They really take the back-end out of the entire thing."

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Billing, customer communication, and fulfillment logistics all run through Table22, leaving Cody and the butchers to do what they actually look forward to. "All we have to do is focus on cutting meat and filling boxes," he says. "They're always working to improve on our boxes. It's something we really enjoy."

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The numbers, and the trust behind them

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Since joining Table22, Provisions Pack sales have grown 100%, driven largely by existing subscribers who keep renewing. "I would tell anyone thinking about starting a club to go for it," Cody says. "I don't need to worry about a lot of things in the background. I can just really focus on what I'm doing."

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The growth sits on top of something harder to build than a sales number: trust that's held since Marrow's first year in business. Cody points to customers who've been part of the Marrow ecosystem since 2018, well before Provisions Packs existed, and to the kind of feedback that sticks with him now that many of them are club members. One regular told him it's the only meat she feels comfortable feeding her kids, given how little she knows about sourcing anywhere else.

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"It just feels good to eat it and feed it to my family," Cody recalls her saying. "You're supporting a local community, your local butcher, your local farmer. There's nothing better than that."

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Continuing the good work

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With a dedicated facility built for scale and a subscription that keeps growing, Marrow is positioned to deepen the two things Cody cares about most: farmer partnerships and whole-animal utilization. The new space means more capacity for the products Provisions Packs are already built around, seasonal sausages, dry-cured bacon, and the cuts customers didn't know they'd love until a butcher put them in a box.

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As a final reflection on their club experience, Cody says: "I would definitely recommend Table22. And I have, many times."

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Our platform, your craft. Welcome to the club.

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