We were lucky to catch up with Carson Nichols recently and have shared our conversation below.
Carson, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
Only a few years ago, we reintroduced a small herd of bison to our property in Mountain Home, Texas. Not long after, our herd continued to replicate and grow larger. Once our herd reached about 50 bison, we realized we had to find a way to properly manage them. But, how? We could sell the animals live to other ranches in the area, or we could harvest them & create a unique meat company. We had two great options available to us, but we knew which one would have the greatest impact on the state of Texas. We would raise organic, antibiotic & steroid free, grass fed & finished, free range bison to be sold at farmer’s markets, food clubs, grocery stores, restaurants, and on our website (apachespiritbison.com). A lot of time and effort goes into raising bison, especially during times of drought. We pride ourselves on raising high quality bison, and providing them the best quality of life. After being in business now for 3 years, nothing is more heart warming than having a valued customer let us know that all of our hard work is cherished by them.
Carson, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
We raise organic, free-range, antibiotic & steroid-free bison in the Texas Hill Country. Our ranch is 5,500 acres in Mountain Home. The property is desolate, which allows our herd of around 250 bison to graze undisturbed. We maintain a hands off approach as much as possible in order to give them the life they once had many years ago. We offer whole, quarters, halves, and even select cuts. Our selections change depending on the time of year, and we offer anywhere from a single steak purchase to a large volume discount. We are very engaged with our customers and enjoy hearing their feedback about our bison. The passion and drive we have from running a bison operation in Texas is empowered from our valued customers who continue to support our business.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
I strive to keep in touch with our clients via social media, but if that fails my phone number is listed on my website and across multiple platforms if they would like to connect with me directly. Word of mouth is our biggest successful marketing campaign to date. I continue to connect with your clients, and foster healthy relationships with them. I am consistently tagged in posts on social media or texted with pictures of our products being cooked. Nothing makes my day like receiving a “we tried bison from Apache Spirit Bison Company and it was DELICIOUS” text or Instagram notification.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
We launched in late January of 2020. The pandemic would hit in the following month, and we would run into complications with processors. There are not enough meat processors in Texas to handle the demand, let alone grocery stores and supermarkets tackling food shortages and widespread panic due to the pandemic. This would be our biggest obstacle to overcome for us to reach the success that we were hoping for. A total of four processors have given us an opportunity to receive their craft, but unfortunately three of them fell short of the quality we’re expecting. After many failed attempts to maintain a healthy partnership with our processor, we finally located a processor who surpassed our expectations. Our processor is essential to the final product that is available to our consumers, and we couldn’t be more relieved to have this obstacle tackled today.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.apachespiritbison.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apachespiritbison/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apachespiritbisonco/
- Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@apachespiritbison