Grassroots Bison in western Preble County started selling steaks, roasts and ground bison at Dayton’s 2nd Street Market on June 14. Running Bare Ranch in Harmony Twp. in Clark County offers its products every Saturday morning at a market in downtown Yellow Springs and also sells to nearby restaurants. And Vista Grand Ranch Bison in New Richmond near Cincinnati has placed its meats in Dorothy Lane Market and Jungle Jim’s grocery stores.
The local bison producers are riding a wave: The demand for bison meat has been growing by double-digit percentages each of the last five years, according to the National Bison Association. Sales to consumers and restaurants jumped 12 percent to $279 million in 2013, and the number of buffalo processed rose 11 percent in 2013 to nearly 60,000, according to Jim Matheson, the bison association’s assistant director.
That’s a tiny fraction of beef production, where 125,000 animals can be processed in a single day, Matheson said. “We are a niche, and we want to keep it that way,” he said.
That perspective is shared by Dan Accurso, co-owner with his wife Debi of Running Bare Ranch near Springfield. His 40-acre ranch two miles from the Clark County fairgrounds is home to 17 bison, including four calves. But it’s also landlocked with farm fields planted to soybeans and corn, so he’s not looking to expand the ranch.
Accurso sells directly to customers from the ranch and at the Yellow Springs Saturday morning farmers market, and to restaurants such as The Winds Cafe and Sunrise Cafe in Yellow Springs and Seasons Bistro and Grille in Springfield.
Accurso purchased his first animal in 2001. “The meat is definitely more popular now when when I started,” he said.
Bison’s culinary characteristics are helping to fuel demand. It tastes life beef but has virtually no “marbling,” the tiny pockets of fat that make high-grade beef tender and juicy but also higher in saturated fat than bison. Because of its leanness, bison requires less cooking time, and enthusiasts tout it as a healthier red-meat alternative to beef.
Cindy Cassell has a Ph.D. in nutrition and also owns, with her husband David Uible, Vista Grand Ranch Bison in New Richmond. Cassell said while she doesn’t recommend anyone consume large amounts of red meat, grass-fed bison is indeed a healthier choice when a craving for red meat arises.
But nutrition is not bison’s sole advantage. Because of the lower fat content, “You get what you pay for,” Cassell said.
When consumers buy a pound of bison and cook it, they end up with close to a pound of meat on the plate, whereas a pound of beef may yield less cooked meat “and a lot of grease,” Cassell said.
Vista Grand Ranch now has 55 bison and sells meat at all three Dorothy Lane Market locations and at both Jungle Jim’s stores. Selling through grocery channels requires U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection of the processed meat and additional insurance costs, Cassell said. Then there’s the cost of installing and maintaining a 6-foot high electric fence and the extra-strong trailers and corrals needed for an animal that can approach one ton in weight.
These costs cut into profits. “We’re not going on vacation on our buffalo money,” Cassell said.
Still, caring for a herd of buffalo also has some advantages compared to other animals, according to the National Bison Association. No barns or other man-made shelter is necessary, since bison prefer to be outside, year-round, despite the weather. They thrive in most North American climates and are raised in every state in the lower 48 except for Rhode Island. Calving rarely requires human intervention, meaning fewer veterinary bills.
And those were some of the reasons the husband-and-wife team of Dale and Annie Thompson entered the business more than two years ago. They now oversee one of the largest bison ranches in Ohio at Grassroots Bison Ranch, which has 180 animals roaming on 240 acres near New Paris not far from the Indiana border.
“We were looking for a healthy meat to raise, and we thought this also would be a good way to raise a family,” Dale Thompson said.
Another husband-and-wife team, Kevin and Trish Keplinger, founded Quiet Creek Bison Farm in Clark County in 2006. The ranch has 34 animals and sells its meat directly to consumers from its 93-acre German Twp. property.
Such family-owned ranches are accelerating the remarkable comeback of a species that teetered on the brink of extinction little more than a century ago, the National Bison Association says. Herds that numbered more than 30 million when the first European explorers arrived in America were nearly wiped out by the 1880s, and by 1900, fewer than 1,000 bison remained in existence.
Today, an estimated 400,000 bison roam pastures across North America, and more than 90 percent of those animals are on private ranches, according to the bison association, which described it as “an amazing story of restoration.”
About the Author
