Angie Bachmeier

Angie helps run the family business, Big Sky Buffalo Ranch in Granville, ND. The ranch sells buffalo meat, heads, hides, and jerky among other products.

Prairie Public
How did you get started in this?

Angie Bachmeier
My grandfather was looking for something different, a little hobby back in 1981, and he bought a few head of buffalo, and it’s just kind of snowballed over the years 'cause we also raise beef cattle and farm too . And it just kind of fell in our lap, and we diversified.

Prairie Public
He started selling the meat then?

Bachmeier
Yeah, we had neighbors asking us if they could buy a quarter or a half so we started out like that, and we started having a freezer full of meat, butchering an animal here and there. And then we decided in about 1992 to really start marketing our products, that there was a market out there for them and that it would help out with the farm and the beef cattle prices.

Prairie Public
How do you market your products?

Bachmeier
We have a shop right on main street in Granville. We also use the Internet. It’s been very helpful for us. Right now we probably do about 80% of our business over the Internet. We also do truckload sales around North Dakota and into Minnesota. We have different little restaurants and grocery stores that carry our product around the area. We do Pride of Dakota shows, and other different agricultural-based shows also.

Prairie Public
And how is it working for you?

Bachmeier
Good. We’ve had really good luck. Each year we get bigger and sell more products so it’s been going good for us.

Prairie Public
What are some of the ways you’ve experimented with your family based business?

Bachmeier
We’ve learned a lot over the years from handling the animals to what kind of cuts sell better, and we’re always doing something different. You know if something doesn’t move, then we’ll get rid of it and make new products so we’re always on the go.

Pretty much we sell anything and everything. We’ve had calls for hearts and tongues. We sell those quite regularly. Rocky Mountain oysters are really popular, also liver. We do higher end cuts like the tenderloins, the London broils, prime ribs so we do a little bit of everything. We make jerky products. We have 8 different jerky’s. We sell a ton of jerky.

We just started doing chokecherry and Cajun-marinated steaks. This spring we started that. We’re kind of really pushing those with our Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea assortments, and they’ve been going over good for us. We’re gonna start bringing in a chokecherry-marinated and Cajun-marinated brisket now also.

Prairie Public
So chokecherry was something that they used back in those days?

Bachmeier
Correct. Yup, yup. Chokecherry marinade came out of the Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea cookbooks. We saw that they were using the chokecherries and stuff as marinades and sweeteners and stuff so that’s where that came about.

We try to get all of our products from other North Dakota businesses. Our chokecherry syrup comes from Hey Cowboy products out of Carson, North Dakota, so we try to keep as much in-state as we can.

We’re always out looking through different cookbooks and stuff and just trying to dab into everything so see what works and what doesn’t.

Prairie Public
And you use the hides too?

Bachmeier
Yes. We save all the hides off our animals that we butcher. The spring, summer, and fall ones we have the hair taken off and made into leather, and that’s how we make our leather vests, chaps, gloves, and stuff like that, and then our winter ones we usually save like the end of December, first part of January when their hide is really in good prime, and we’ll have the hair on robes made and the head mounts also off those.

Prairie Public
It sounds like you’re using all of the buffalo.

Bachmeier
Yup, we try to use everything.

Prairie Public
Sometimes with people trying to do direct marketing they lose money that way.

Bachmeier
Right, yup. We’ve been lucky. You know we try to utilize everything, and we to date don’t have anything stockpiled. We sell quite a bit of our lower end meats so we don’t have those stockpiled. Our oldest meat is maybe 30 days old 'cause we butcher 10-12 animals a month.

Prairie Public
Where do you do the butchering?

Bachmeier
We do that at Prairie Packaging out in Williston. We’ll haul ‘em down live, and they take care of it from there so then we go back down the next week when they’re cutting, and we get it packaged and labeled and everything right there and bring it back.

Prairie Public
Are you growing your herd or just keeping it the same or what’s happening now?

Bachmeier
We haven’t been bringing any new animals in other than breeding bulls. We really haven’t been selling anything either right now being the market’s so low, so we’re just trying to maintain right now.

Prairie Public
Does the low market affect you?

Bachmeier
It really hasn’t affected our meat business at all. We haven’t had to cut prices or anything like that to sell it 'cause we’re still selling it quite well. We used to sell all of our heifers and bulls, the yearlings and weanlings and stuff. We haven’t done that in the last couple years but we’re still plugging away so we’re still makin’ it.

Prairie Public
How did the dry conditions affect you?

Bachmeier
They weren’t too bad for us here in this area. The pastures weren’t as good as they normally are, but we haven’t had too much problems with the buffalo.

Prairie Public
You have enough food for the winter?

Bachmeier
Oh yes. Yup we put up quite a few hay bales. But the buffalo don’t eat as much in the winter. They’d rather stand out and paw under the snow and get the grass than they would eat the hay bales.

Prairie Public
Hopes for the future, plans for the future?

Bachmeier
Hopes for the future—to keep growing like we have been I guess. Hopefully the breeding and live animal market will come back up. I don’t think it will get as high as it was there six, seven, eight years ago, but if it comes up a little bit and kind of evens out, that would help quite a bit. But we hope to grow again next year. Every year we get bigger and better.

Prairie Public
How do the truckload sales go?

Bachmeier
Good. We set up at different spots from Williston to Bottineau to Bismarck, Fargo, all the way down to Anoka, Minnesota. We have different businesses that let us set up in their parking lot, and we send out our postcards and do advertising and stuff like that to get the people there. They go over really good for us.

Prairie Public
Who do you send the postcards to?

Bachmeier
To all of our customers all over the US so if say we’re gonna be in Wichita Falls, TX, then you know we’re really trying to catch those people.

Prairie Public
You go that far?

Bachmeier
Yup. This last spring we went down to Wichita Falls for a show.

Prairie Public
Why Wichita Falls, TX?

Bachmeier
There’s a big agricultural show down there, and the company that runs those shows we’ve done ones in South Dakota with them too, and they were good shows for us. We thought we’d venture down to Texas to that one. This spring we also went down by Phoenix, Arizona and did truckload sales down there. We do a lot of traveling.

Prairie Public
Is that a fun part of what you do?

Bachmeier
Oh yeah, I live to be out and about and meeting the different people and seeing the different areas and stuff like that. But it’s always nice to get back home.

Prairie Public
Tell me how the Internet business came about.

Bachmeier
Some friends of my grandfather’s got in on this Internet business I guess, and they came out one day and sat in the back in the office there and talked to my grandfather and my mom. Grandpa, he wasn’t too enthused about the whole thing, but mom said "Well, let’s give it a try" you know. It seems to be getting to be pretty big business so we got on it, and it was kinda slow in the beginning,but after people got to looking around or surfing the net I guess, it really turned into a big business for us. We’ve shipped meat out to all 50 states, and we’ve even shipped jerky overseas.

Prairie Public
It seems like your family has been quite visionary and been able to see things and take risks.

Bachmeier
Oh yes, oh yes, there’s risks to anything really, and sometimes we’ve only jumped in with one foot, and sometimes we’ve jumped in with both. We just kinda see what happens. If it works out, it works out. Great. And if it doesn’t, well we learn from our mistakes and try it a different way.

Prairie Public
Any recommendation you’d have for anybody else trying to do direct marketing?

Bachmeier
It takes time. It’s not going to happen overnight so you just have to keep working at it, and you know there’s going to be doors slammed in your face, but you just have to keep at it. It all takes time, but it’ll pay off in the end.

Prairie Public
Tell me about your buffalo hunt.

Bachmeier
We sell buffalo hunts. Usually the guys like to come in December, first part of January when the hides are in prime. That way they can get head mounts and rugs and stuff made, but they get the whole animal. I don’t know, we’ve always been pretty lucky with that too. We get quite a few guys from around the state.

Prairie Public
And that’s the way you get rid of your bulls?

Bachmeier
Our large herd bulls that we want to get rid of, yes. So they’re getting nice, big animals. All of the guys have kept the meat. It’s really not as tender as the two-year-old’s might butcher, but they’ll get burger and stuff made out of ‘em. And a couple of the guys have even bought a two-year-old animal for the meat to take with. So it all depends on what they want it for.

Prairie Public
Do you get people ordering a whole animal?

Bachmeier
Oh yeah. Yup, we sell quite a few ­ even quarters and halves too so.

Prairie Public
When they come to do the hunt, are they on horseback or…?

Bachmeier
We set it up however they want it. If they want it out in the pasture with trees, fine. We’ve had a guy shoot in the corral because he was so intimidated by the size. So it all depends on what they want to do. We try to work it out for ‘em.

Prairie Public
There’s some risk too.

Angie Bachmeier
Oh yeah, they get out there and get ‘em fighting and runnin’. They want to get right out there on foot, and it’s not like deer hunting. When you go to shoot that buck or a doe, she’s not gonna come after you, you know?

Prairie Public
How does the western shop fit into the other things you’re doing?

Bachmeier
The western shop was started back in 1995, and we just basically carry the basic of western clothing, jewelry, novelty items. Just another added benefit. We have all of our buffalo meat and buffalo leather products available here so people can come in and do their shopping and pick up some buffalo meat or jerky or whatever. We have everything available right here.

Prairie Public
Why did you decide to do the western wear along with it?

Bachmeier
There was a western shop in Towner that went out of business. When I went to college for a year in Fargo, I worked at a western shop down there so we just thought we’d give it a whirl and see what happens. It’s been going over pretty good. We get quite a few people from probably a hundred-mile radius in shopping.

We make balloon bouquets and sell different Pride of Dakota products and stuff. That way people don’t have to go to Minor for everything. They can stay here in Granville and get a few things too so.