Hello Basic Patrick, ZBQ Chris and other Brethren.
This is Johnny Love from Huntspoint.com. Let me start out, Basic Patrick, by saying that I regret that you weren't satisfied with your experience with us. We certainly don't want to have any customer disappointed.
I'd like to take a few minutes to offer our perspective on the issues that you raise. I think that it's reasonable to have both sides available and let the readers make up their mind based on input from both of us.
BasicPatrick did buy one brisket from me, then he reported a problem with it. I took 2 briskets at 11pm to meet him 30 miles away and gave him the selection of 2 of our gold wagyu briskets, so he could compete in a BBQ competition. He then selected the bigger gold brisket, and the next day he raised concerns about that brisket as well, which he got a 2nd place finish with btw. He then ordered another brisket, reported a problem with it too and I offered to give him a refund if he sent it back.
See image below from FB messaging.
http://www.huntspoint.com/images/PP.png
BasicPatrick wrote on Post #13 "This time the company refused to make good."
Again, BasicPatrick brought up how the briskets were marred by scarring. Sometime it is hard or impossible to see the gash or cut from the outside of a cryovac.We sell lots of briskets and on occasion a few may have cut section(s) in it. Briskets with noticeable slashed or cuts do not ever go to competition teams. We certainly apologize for that and we're happy that the one you did use got you a second place finish. Regarding the other brisket that was problematic, you said “This time the company refused to make good.” That is inaccurate. We offered you your money back and were happy to do so. We stand behind what we sell. Mistakes can happen. It was a while ago, people can forget. The screenshot does indicate that we attempted to ‘make good’ however
We offered a refund to an unhappy customer(Patrick) that apparently was not enough. He wanted another brisket. I did not have any brisket that would make Patrick happy, therefore I offered him a refund. We hate to see unhappy customers, therefore, we try our best to make each and every customer a happy customer. However, we also, understand that we can not make everybody happy and regret that.
I also want to talk about our Gold Wagyu Briskets. BasicPatrick seems to be concerned about our use of the term 'gold' as one of the designators for the quality of our meat. The term was chosen for what I assume is the same reason as everyone else (including numerous companies in the meat industry). It's an instantly recognizable idiom for 'premium'. Gold medal, gold standard, gold award. There are at least 4 meat companies that use 'Gold' in their marketing. There are at least 2 ancillary companies that use 'Gold'. Gold, Silver, Bronze and A, B, C are probably the two most common means of classification of tiered quality in marketing.
The name 'Huntspoint' seems to be a problem for you since we are not located in that part of NYC. You might be relieved to know that we were and that's where the company started. We didn't think it would be a big deal or advantageous to change the name of the company when we moved. I hope that you can agree that this was reasonable. Basic Patrick is claiming that we have been shipping from NH for over a year. This is not true, the NH location has been shipping for less than 9 months.
Another concern is that we haven't been inspected. Unfortunately, we don't control when inspections occur. We are confident that there will be no problems when we are inspected and would be happy to post information about such an inspection when it occurs.
I do not eye ball any brisket and come up with my own grade. The fact is we have a meat supplier network that provides us with what we ask for, some time we get what we ask for, other times due to supply limitations we don't. If I get a Imperial Signature its marketed as a Gold Brisket. Imperial also sells a Wagyu Brisket which would have less marbling and would not be highly marbled like the gold Wagyu Brisket. For our gold briskets, we use only the best briskets from our suppliers and then verify that those specific briskets meet our standards.
All of our meats that we sell have been graded by a meat expert in a meat plant during the meat processing. We work with the facilities directly where we receive everything in cryovaced packaging and graded at the plant.
In 2014, We sold Imperial Wagyu, SnakeRiver Farms, Australian Wagyu, Durham Ranch, and Domestic Wagyu. We don't specify brand on our website, We offer the best hand selected briskets that are available on the market. Every wagyu company has named their gold grade (8+) briskets under different names, and we just name all those as gold, because the grading is 8+.We never sold regular wagyu briskets as gold brisket and never would, if anything, many times we shipped gold briskets to our customers as a replacement when we did not have regular wagyu briskets in hand. We upgraded our customers at no charge. Also, when we did not have gold wagyu brisket in hand, we informed our customers about the shortage of gold wagyu briskets. That is part of how we define customer service.
We have a very successful business and sell many briskets as well as other cuts. We sell hand selected best briskets to the BBQ teams, and the rest of our briskets go to the backyard barbecuers.
Our meats are winning, because we are selecting the best bbq meats for our customers and also bbq teams know how to cook. Some of the successful results of our meats are :
1st place brisket Seaside Heights NJ 2013 & 2014
1st place Brisket RI State Championship 2014
1st place Brisket Cresskill NJ 2014
1st place Brisket Staten Island, NY State Championship 2014
1st place Brisket Atlantic City, NJ BBQ Championship 2013
1st place brisket in Sam’s Club Regionals VA 2014
1st place brisket Wildwood NJ State Championship 2014
1st place brisket Sam’s Club National BBQ Tour Laurel MD
1st place MD State BBQ Bash
1st place in New Holland PA 2014
1st place Ribs Seaside Heights NJ 2013
1st place Ribs Staten Island NY State Championship 2014
1st place Ribs - World Food Championship, Las Vegas 2013
1st place Ribs - International division of Jack Daniels 2014
These are some of the competition results by teams that used our meats.
I have been referred to as "Basement Dude", I hold my head up high when I hear that, there is no shame in starting a business small. Hewlett Packard started in a garage. There are many successful billion dollar companies which started small in a garage, basement or dorm room. The Home Kitchen / garage / basement is the place where many people in the BBQ community have started their rub/sauce/catering businesses so they can support their families and passion for BBQ.
BasicPatrick and ZBQ Chris think that I have a lot of power at Facebook to pressure them to remove threads which are posted by others. The fact is we proudly sold meats to the Facebook CEO, but I do not have any power at the Facebook corporation to delete postings.
They are claiming that I sell gold Wagyu briskets for 3X more money. That is also not true. SRF sells gold wagyu briskets 14-17 lbs is $199.00 and Huntspoint.com sells our 15 - 17 lbs gold wagyu brisket for $199.95. You get more meat with Johnny Love by 1 lb on the lower end.
If anyone has any questions for us, I encourage you to call us or email us at your convenience. We'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. We obviously hope that your questions will be answered satisfactorily, but we respect the right of anyone to make up their own mind.
For those following this thread, we thank you for reading our (somewhat lengthy) response to Patrick's concerns. Competition BBQ is a lot of fun but is also a very serious business. We congratulate anyone who takes it seriously enough to become a serious competitor. We appreciate Patrick's commitment and encourage you to read his comments, our response and look for input from other people that have used our meat.
Again, we welcome any phone calls, 212-380-1273, or emails from anyone with any questions or concerns.
Happy smoking!
Johnny