Last week, our founders had the incredible honor of leading a seminar at the National Bison Conference in Montana. They’d expected to give the presentation about grass-fed bison in front of tens of people—but instead, were greeted by over 600 eager faces. It was a stunning display of how eager ranchers and suppliers are to get in on this growing and powerful market.

It was a welcome sign, too. Over the last several years, we’ve seen the cost of bison meat spike while the aggregate supply has only slowly followed suit. This inherently makes it difficult to create bison-based products while maintaining consistency in product pricing. As a result of the rising cost of acquiring bison meat, we have an announcement: our Bison Bacon Cranberry bars are transitioning from a 1.5 oz package size to 1.3 oz.

But that’s only a slice of the pie. Here’s a bit more background on why we determined this is our best course of action here:

• Since the launch of the EPIC Bison Bacon Cranberry bar in 2013, the cost of bison meat has increased by over 25%. Consequently, this has put us in a position to either: 1) raise the asking price for our bars, or 2) slightly alter their size. Rather than charging consumers more, we believe making them slightly smaller is the more prudent decision.

• Bacon price volatility is also a factor here. That is yet another reason we are choosing to tackle this matter now while ensuring our consumers are insulated from these market changes.

• Most importantly, we are intent on transitioning a larger overall percentage of our bison bars from ‘natural’ bison over to grass-fed bison. As you can find in our EPIC Honesty Pledge, grass-fed bison are still in very low supply (less than 10% nationally). By resizing the bar, we will have more flexibility to invest in our grass-fed supply and transition away from ‘natural’ bison.

The fact is, grain-free bison are incredibly difficult to find. That doesn’t mean we’re giving up or compromising our values—on the contrary. As we’ve detailed in previous blogs, this simply means we need to continue driving the market and bison supply chain in the direction of grass-fed while making the proper temporary adjustments.

We couldn’t be more excited about what we’re seeing. In truth, our experience out in Montana is only one of countless signs that ranchers and suppliers are ready to make their greatest leap yet towards grass-fed. We just need to keep pushing them. And rest assured, we will.

Thanks for your support and understanding, EPIC champions. We’re in this for the long haul. We hope you are too.

If you have any remaining questions whatsoever, please contact us at eatepic@epicbar.com.