Pittsburgh, PA - Buffalo meat is providing a boon to bison farmers. One Pennsylvania herder said his sales were double the projections he made when he got into the business three years ago.
Dan Koman, the son and grandson of dairy farmers, opened his Wooden Nickel Buffalo Farm and Trading Post in Edinboro three years ago.
“We had some of the meat five years ago and fell in love with the taste and quality and away we went,” Koman said.
One of 50 Pennsylvania buffalo ranchers, Koman raises 44 head of buffalo on his 180-acre farm. His business plan projected selling 2,000 pounds of the meat a year, but this year he expects to sell 4,500 to 5,000 pounds through his store and mail-order business. He estimated that he makes triple the money he would make with beef cattle.
One hundred grams of lean bison meat has 82 grams of cholesterol, compared with 86 grams of cholesterol in the same portion of beef. Skinless chicken and pork have even more cholesterol. Bison has one-quarter the fat of beef.
Omar Graybill, the 73-year-old president of the Pennsylvania State Buffalo Association, slaughters and sells one bull a month from his 40-acre East Earl farm in Lancaster County.
A 1,000-pound bison yields about 700 pounds of steaks, ribs and ground meat. Customers include meat lovers and restaurants but no stores, which do not like the price.
Consumers -- especially east of Colorado, the nation's top state for domestic buffalo -- will have difficulty finding bison meat at the corner grocery.
Koman, the Edinboro farmer, acknowledged that the small supply of bison drives up its price and makes it less popular than beef. He sells a pound of ground bison for $5.50, compared with $1.59 for lean ground beef at a local grocery. A buffalo ribeye costs $14.95 per pound, compared with $5.49 per pound for beef ribeye.
“People just don't want to go out and spend three times the money on something,” he said.
Nationwide, 2,464 cattle are butchered daily for each bison that is killed, the National Bison Association reports.
“We really haven't seen much of a loss in demand for beef from bison. It's a novelty item like ostrich,” said Tammy Weaver, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Beef Council.
Graybill estimated there are 50,000 bison in Pennsylvania, compared with 945,000 beef cattle.
“On an industry level, we're trying to keep demand slightly ahead of supply. That helps keep our prices high,” said Sam Albrecht, a spokesman for the National Bison Association.
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