Pick-Up, Local Delivery or Shipping: Which Should You Choose?
Three ways to get beef from us to you, and the choice is mostly settled by where you live and how much you are buying.
Three options, and for most people the answer is decided by one or two facts rather than by preference.
The rule that overrides everything
A half share and a whole beef are pick-up only. About 175 lbs of frozen beef is not a parcel, and no amount of insulation makes it one. If you want a share that size, you are collecting it. The 1/8 share ships without difficulty.
If you are in the High Country
Collect. It is free at all three locations, it is faster, and nothing sits in a depot. The days and addresses are in how farm pick-up works. Boone, Blowing Rock and Banner Elk are all within easy reach of at least one point.
“The farms that we have access to are just little plot. It's tucked in amongst the hills, and you don't have big large expanses, that you can manage consistently and it's more spread out and it's more disparate. That's what's unique about the farming plus we're in a couple hours off the interstate and kind of tucked up here away from some of the labor pool and some of the resources and some of the transportation that makes it easier to get out and reach customers that are a little further away.”
Gray Shipley
If you are further out in North Carolina
It depends on the trip. People drive up from Charlotte and Winston-Salem to collect, usually combining it with something else. If the drive is not worth it on its own, ship.
If you are out of state
Ship. It is packed frozen, vacuum-sealed, insulated with dry ice and sent early in the week so nothing sits over a weekend. The whole packing method is in how beef ships from the farm.
“Well, selling your own meat starts with who are you going to sell it to? If it's a restaurant, you have to have it consistently available 52 weeks a year. If it's a consumer, you have to either open a farm store or figure out how to ship online with packaging and dry ice and insulation, and UPS relationships or spend every Saturday at the farmer's market. And so each one of those just has barriers and costs and coordination and infrastructure. That's a lot for somebody that often is working two or three jobs.”
Gray Shipley
The short version
- Half or whole share? Pick-up. No other option exists.
- Within about thirty miles? Pick-up, every time. It is free.
- Elsewhere in the state? Either. Ship if the drive is not worth making.
- Out of state? Ship.
“Because it's tough for smaller farmers to have something available, 200 pounds ready to go. And we don't know whether you're coming or not. Because if you're not coming, then we still have to find a home for it. And if you are, we have to have it ready.”
Gray Shipley
Should I collect my beef, have it delivered locally, or have it shipped?
Collect if you are in the High Country, ship if you are not, and know that the largest shares are pick-up only.
- Freezing and Food Safety, USDA FSIS
- Cold Food Storage Chart, FoodSafety.gov
Food-safety temperatures and storage times on this page are cited to the agencies above rather than to us.
Written at Shipley Farms in Vilas, North Carolina: a family cattle farm raising and dry-aging beef in the Appalachian Mountains, now in its fifth generation. No shortcuts since 1872.
Every quote on this page is Gray Shipley talking, the man who runs this farm. We sat down with him, turned on a recorder, and kept his own words. Hesitations are trimmed so they read on the page. Nothing else is added or reworded, except where Gray revised his own words in review.
Nobody knows this beef better than we do. On food safety we leave it to USDA FSIS and FoodSafety.gov, and we have linked their pages above. Reviewed 3 October 2026.
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