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Article 2/21/05 |
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Ted
Turner's advice: Eat more bison
CNN founder selling Montana bison meat in 31-restaurant
chain
By Rachel Brand of The Scripps Howard News Service,
Montana Standard Butte
2/21/05 |
A
string of Western-theme diners may have transformed a
novelty meat into a blue-plate special.
Live bison prices have nearly tripled and the public's
hunger for the lean, tangy meat is growing as it shows
up on menus and in grocery stores.
Experts credit media mogul Ted Turner and his eponymous
restaurant chain, Ted's Montana Grill.
‘‘Ted's was the trendsetter,'' said Dave Carter,
executive director of the National Bison Association.
‘‘One of the things we've said for a long
time is we needed a good way to get people to take their
first bite.
‘‘They're going into Ted's, trying it the
first time. It tastes great, and then we are seeing an
increase in demand for our other marketers.''
To clarify, it is bison, not buffalo. Dark brown, thick-shouldered
bison have short, U-shaped horns. They roamed the North
American plains and were nearly hunted to extinction at
the turn of the century until ranchers and national parks
worked to bring them back.
Turner is the largest landowner in the United States,
and he owns 70,000 of the estimated 250,000 North American
bison alive today.
Turner, who founded 24-hour Cable News Network, has been
called a visionary. After all, who expected CNN to work?
‘‘I prefer to let other people call me that,''
Turner said with a molasses-laced Georgia drawl.
Still, his quirky investment in the American bison and
a series of bison diners might have been visionary —
or a shrewd business plan to create a market for a product
he owns.
Two-year-old Ted's Montana Grill sells 6,000 bison-based
meals a day, and bison cheeseburgers are by far its most
popular dish. The 31-restaurant chain will earn $70 million
in sales and add 15 stores this year.
Thanks in part to Ted's, bison prices are climbing. ‘‘There's
a tremendous amount of confidence coming back into the
business,'' Carter said.
Carter estimates bison consumption at 0.07 pounds per
person vs. 63 pounds for beef.
‘‘We call that upside potential,'' he said.
On the Net: www.tedsmontanagrill.com
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