The Rise of Bison: Why everyone’s eating the other red meat

This year, carnivores are considering something different for their summer barbecues, cookouts and even hiking snacks.

Bison — sometimes known as buffalo — is gaining favor as a lean, nutrient-rich choice for burgers, steaks, and jerky.

“Bison has a richer, slightly sweeter flavor than beef, but without the heaviness or that overly fatty taste. It’s clean, a little earthy, and it takes on marinades really well…which is perfect for jerky,” said Yasmeen Sokol of Sovereign Warrior, a Montana-based bison jerky producer, in an email.

“A lot of people expect it to taste wild or gamey, but they’re always surprised by how approachable it is.”

Bison — currently available at PCC stores as ground meat in the freezer case and in Sovereign Warrior jerky — has seen a tremendous increase in consumption since 2020, according to the National Bison Association. “During the first year of COVID, most of the other animal proteins saw their processing capacity get squeezed. Bison didn’t, which led to the price parity between beef and bison to shrink considerably. A lot of Americans got a taste for bison meat during that time and haven’t let go,” association communications coordinator Adam Ulbricht said in an email.

Once hard to find — and before that, in danger of extinction — bison have become an increasingly popular and more commonly available choice for sustainably grown meat.

How bison became a national symbol

Bison were officially named the national mammal of the United States in 2016, joining the bald eagle as a national symbol. The animals are the largest land mammal in North America, according to the National Park Service, which says that “no other wildlife species has had as much impact on humans and the ecosystems that they occupied than bison.”

Millions of bison once roamed the plains in America, serving as a major source of food, clothing and tools for Indigenous people, who revered the animals. By the late 1800s, though, the animals were nearly extinct, in part from a deliberate attempt by the U.S. government to deny Native Americans an important source of food, according to PBS.

The American Bison Society was founded in 1905 to help save the animals (with President Teddy Roosevelt as one founder), and the U.S. Department of the Interior protected its small herd at Yellowstone National Park, later adding more. More than 10,000 bison are now protected through partnerships on DOI land, according to the park service.

Media mogul Ted Turner is credited with a surge of interest in bison meat, raising the animals on his massive ranchland holdings and even opening a chain of restaurants that served bison. (The National Buffalo Foundation says Turner owned an estimated 11% of the world’s bison population at one point.) Many other ranchers have joined him in recent years, reflecting what Civil Eats called “growing consumer preference for lean, grass-fed meats that are humanely raised and offer a taste of place.”  (About three-quarters of America’s bison are actually finished on grain, the publication noted. Seek out bison certified as 100% grass-fed to avoid the grain-finished meats.)

From an environmental standpoint, the animals are “a keystone species,” crucial for maintaining ecosystems like the Great Plains, said Abtin Akbari, spokesperson for the Wild Idea Buffalo Company, whose ground bison is stocked in PCC freezer cases.

“Interestingly, the prairie grasses that thrive thanks to bison play a significant role in carbon sequestration, rivaling even the Amazon rainforest. This carbon storage is particularly resilient because it occurs in the extensive underground root systems, remaining even after prairie fires,” he said.

Nutritional profile of bison

Bison’s gained favor from both nutritionists and adherents to keto or low-carb diets. It has less saturated fat and fewer calories than beef. It’s rich in vitamins and minerals, including iron, magnesium, calcium and zinc. It’s also rich in anti-inflammatory Omega-3s and other recommended fatty acids.

Ground bison is still the most popular product, according to Ulbricht, but more restaurants and grocers are starting to carry steaks and other cuts too: “This is an encouraging sign that we can add additional value to the animal by better utilizing more of it.”

Also, some health-focused diets, such as the “Ancestral Diet,” mix organs into the ground meet to boost the vitamins and nutrients.

Meet some bison producers

Both bison producers currently carried by PCC were drawn to the field for its sustainability.

At Wild Idea, the founder of the South Dakota-based ranch brought in bison to rewild the “battered” ranch, preserve the prairies, and provide a healthier red meat alternative. The family-owned company is the first meat producer to achieve the Regenerative Organic Certified label, and is 100% grass-fed and grass-finished. The company’s ranching practices already met the requirements of ROC certification, the “gold standard,” said second-generation Wild Idea CEO Jilian Jones — achieving the label was mainly just an issue of documentation.

Wild Idea also does not use conventional slaughterhouses; instead, animals are harvested on the prairie, in a method that’s meant to be stress-free for the herd, detailing on its website that “every scrap of meat that is unusable is given back to the earth, and everything that can be used, be it meat, offal, hide, or bone, is used.”

For shelf-stable bison products, PCC carries Sovereign Warrior jerky.

Sokol said she and husband Lance have always “shared a deep respect for bison” and were ordering from Wild Idea Buffalo for their own home freezer.

The Montana-based company, which contributes a share of profits to a foundation supporting wildland firefighters, really came to life after connecting with Creekside Ranch, five minutes down the road from their home.

“They were raising beautiful, grass-fed bison but struggling to find consistent buyers. At the time, we weren’t sure what kind of business we wanted to build, but as soon as we saw the quality of their meat, we knew we had to do something with it. Creekside bison goes into their jerky bites, while they source whole-muscle jerky from Wild Idea.

“Jerky made sense, it’s a snack we both love, it’s shelf-stable, easy to ship, and widely enjoyed. But most of what’s out there is filled with preservatives, sugar, or ingredients we’d never use at home. So we started making our own, by hand, using meat we believed in and real food recipes.”

Why bison? It was already what they were eating at home, she said.

“Beyond that, bison has this powerful presence. It’s resilient, deeply connected to the land, and it plays a vital role in regenerating the prairie ecosystem when raised properly. That matters to us. We’ve both felt a strong affinity for the animal itself, and making jerky with bison allows us to honor that relationship and share it with others.”

“At the end of the day, this is about more than jerky. It’s about remembering what food can be when it’s made with care, and choosing to live in a way that honors that.”