Descendants of the hunters who once ravaged the Great Plains bison to near extinction are developing a taste for the animal, bringing its numbers back up.
Bison is making a comeback as a popular meat alternative on the menus of fine-dining restaurants in cities across Europe and North America.
Despite growing at the rate of 25 percent a year, the bison industry can’t keep up.
“People try it out of curiosity and they love it so much they just can’t stop eating it,” said Dennis Sexhus, who raises 1,000 head on his North Dakota ranch.
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“I’m in that category. That’s why I got into the bison business.”
Sexhus is also chief operating officer of the North American Bison Co-operative which has 250 producer-members.
The New Rockford, N.D.-based co-op is choosing sites for two new slaughter and processing plants expected to be running within three years.
With 60 Canadian members and business north of the border nearly doubling each year, the co-op is eyeing Western Canada for one of the new plants. It is expected to bring 40 full-time jobs.
Jim Quick, a Saskatoon-area bison rancher who ships his animals to New Rockford for slaughter, is one of the co-op’s Canadian members.
Ideal locations
Quick heads a group of about 10 nearby producers trying to get the Saskatchewan government to help promote Saskatoon or North Battleford as the best site for a Canadian bison slaughter plant. Although nearly 70 percent of Canada’s bison are raised in Alberta, Quick said Saskatchewan holds advantages.
“There’s a lot of opposition to co-ops in Alberta,” he said.
With the proximity of Manitoba producers to the North Dakota plant, he’s hoping a central Saskatchewan site, versus Edmonton, will win the bid.
The group will start working toward its goal of raising 2,500 shares once the U.S.-based co-op clears the Canadian securities commission, said Quick, who bought his shares in North Dakota.
The kill at the New Rockford facility runs just over 4,000 buffalo annually, with a goal at hitting 10,000 by the year 2000. The co-op processes and markets 60,000 pounds a week, selling one-quarter of it to Europe.
Local interest in plant
To help determine where to build the new plants, the co-operative hired a North Dakota State University graduate student to conduct a bison census. Location of the new sites will depend on the number of bison in the area and the level of interest by local producers.
Western Canada fares well in both categories, Sexhus said.
“The prairie provinces in Canada are the fastest growing areas in North America.”
Bison have a critical advantage over other livestock raised in the northern U.S. and Western Canada: their ability to withstand cold. Sexhus is quick to point out his entire herd, left unsheltered, survived the harsh blizzard that claimed nearly 200,000 cattle in southern Manitoba and the Dakotas this spring.
But bison will never replace beef as a staple meat. At the current rate of growth, it would take 40 years to bring bison production up to five percent of today’s beef population, he said.
“It’s a specialty thing that works well for these northern producers who have weather concerns.”
Buffalo meat, known as lean, low fat and high in protein, commands a premium price, two or three times that of beef.
“It’s the health conscious market,” Sexhus said. “These people like good food and they’re willing to pay for it.”
Meat isn’t the only bison product on the market. Hides are used to make gloves and robes that can fetch up to $1,000 in Europe, and decorative bison skulls can sell for $250.
