The COVID-19 outbreak has hit every corner of our country like a brutal winter blizzard. Blizzards are nothing new for bison…or for the ranchers who take care of them. Bison meat processors and marketers are on the front lines of navigating through the shifting market dynamics right now. While their food service customers have disappeared, …
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Working on behalf of the nation’s bison ranchers sometimes seems a bit like being a tent revival preacher. I returned home on Sunday after joining members of the Kansas Buffalo Association for their annual consignment sale and membership meeting. Meanwhile, NBA Assistant Director Jim Matheson was in Ogden, UT last weekend to provide an update …
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Angst…it’s not just for teenagers anymore. There’s a fair bit of that floating around the bison business these days. Carcass prices—which tested the stratosphere for eight years—have dropped back to earthly levels in the past six months. Early auction reports haven’t been terrible, but they haven’t been anything to tell the grand-kids about, either. …
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Time for a pop quiz, folks. There are roughly nine million Holstein dairy cattle in the United States. The bison population in the U.S. stands at about 200,000 animals, having rebounded from the time about 130 years ago when only about 700 were left alive. Here’s the question: Which species has more genetic diversity? Need …
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Perhaps you saw this in the news a couple of weeks ago: New evidence links ultra-processed foods with a range of health risks. When I saw variations of this headline spill in through my news feeds, I immediately did my 1980’s best Valley Girl imitation…”Like, duh.” I assume that the lead researcher in this study …
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Almost every day is fun when you have the privilege of representing bison ranchers from across the United States. Yesterday was one that I’ll remember for a long, long time. I was joined by NBA members Mortz Espy of South Dakota and Donnis Baggett of Texas, along with South Dakota taxidermist Gary English as we …
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This is the best time of year to be in bison business. Northern state ranchers are finally feeling the warming rays of spring sun after a long, cold winter. Across most of the country new red calves are dotting greening pastures. It’s a season of anticipation and expectation. This spring, though, there’s a bit of …
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I’ve pounded the drum continuously over the past few months to call out the need for truth in labeling when it comes to companies using the term “buffalo” to deceive customers into believing that water buffalo meat and pet food ingredients are actually bison. But that’s only one example of how our business must deal …
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A typical comment made when first trying some type of exotic meat: “Tastes like chicken.” But most foods don’t really taste like chicken. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, there’s something else that doesn’t taste like chicken these days: chicken. The Journal reported last week, “Chicken companies spent decades breeding birds to …
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Natural Products Expo West, the nation’s largest trade show for natural and organic products taking place in California this week, is a cacophony of competing marketing claims. The nearly 80,000 retailers, product buyers, marketers and others wandering through the 3,000 exhibits packed inside Anaheim Convention Center are steadily bombarded with claims regarding “no GMOs,” “Gluten …
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