Demand For Bison Continues To Increase

The cattle industry isn’t the only part of the livestock sector with low inventory.  Jim Matheson, executive director of the National Bison Association, says his producers are in a similar situation.

“From a macro view, we’re very similar to the cattle industry," Matheson noted.  "We are at a very tight supply still in our business, very similar to the low inventory of cattle right now, which is having an impact, of course, on pricing, etc. Meanwhile, and this is kind of a new one for us, consumer demand is just growing like crazy for bison. It's caught on. And we've had these shortages before. However, this time, we didn't have the pent-up demand for it like we do this time. And on top of that, with cattle prices being so strong, typically, when we would hit high prices like this, we would see transition, of course, from cattlemen crossing over to bison, which we're not seeing so much this time because of those great cattle prices, and we're happy for those producers as well.”

Consumer Demand Jumped After The Pandemic

Matheson takes a look at the driving force behind the recent increase demand for bison.

“We've been beating the drum about our great product and how it's uniquely American. All bison in the commercial marketplace are raised in America and Canada and nowhere else," Matheson said.  "Obviously, it’s a great protein option for folks out there with an unbeatable nutritional profile, and it tastes great. So, I think honestly, folks are just catching on. We've been doing a lot of consumer outreach. We've talked about the big bump we saw in consumer demand after COVID, when people started experimenting with bison a bit more, and since then, we hit the consumer outreach piece pretty hard, doing a lot of in-person events once we could go back out in the world and do in-person events, which continues through today.”

The overall bison population is at a low despite the increasing demand.

"We are, yeah, and we do import a good amount of animals from Canada as well, and the inventory is low in both of our countries, of course," he noted.  "So, we don't have the data and the history that cattle does, of course, but if you talk to the folks that have been around this for a while, particularly the commercial marketers, this is the tightest it's ever been.”

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