ReGen Brands Recap #34

Jon Sepp @ Roam Free Ranch

Ready-To-Eat Regenerative Bison 

Jon Sepp is a Co-Founder of Roam Free Ranch. Roam Free Ranch is supporting regenerative agriculture with their ready-to-eat bison snacks and meals. 

 

The Brand

Roam Free is a regenerative bison brand and ranching operation based in Montana that produces two main product lines. These include a shelf-stable, sugar-free jerky product made with grass-fed, grass-finished, regeneratively grown bison, and ready-to-eat, pre-cooked meal products available in the refrigerated section. The meals currently offered and sold at Costco are a traditional Bison Chili and a Bison Chili Colorado with one secret SKU that is set to launch in the next two months.

 

Committing to the Ranch

Jon was drawn to Montana for its open wilderness and low population. In 2013, after nine years serving in the military, Jon bought a 240-acre ranch in the center of the Flathead Reservation. 

He learned quickly that running a ranch is extremely challenging. It’s a high volume, low margin business and, like many in ag today, he was forced to get a second job off the ranch. But in 2015, he met his future wife Brittany, and together they decided to go all in. They quit their off-ranch jobs, leased more land, and started raising bison full-time. It was the culmination of a journey that started with a spark from Jon's childhood.

“My family moved coast to coast and always stopped at the national parks in the West. One trip in particular, we came across a huge valley during the bison rut season. It was an impactful moment in my childhood. The animal was so impressive. I wanted to know more about them. I always liked animals in general and wanted to be a veterinarian growing up, but obviously went in a much different direction. Now I’m a veteran – different but close!” – Jon

 

Managing the Land

Roam Free Ranch's initial acreage was located in a remote area called Wilkes Gulch. The land was very dry and fragile, and Jon began looking for ways to optimize the land knowing that when you run out of water, you quickly run out of grass. He learned about rotational grazing in 2013 at a local bison producers' meeting. The government had been paying ranchers to use rotational grazing for almost 100 years, mimicking the movements and patterns of bison. From there, he also started to integrate holistic management.

As Jon explains it, we’ve created so many problems by removing keystone species from the land – the largest being bison in the West. The challenge is to return species-appropriate food to land bases that make sense and to steward the land appropriately. 

“Regenerative basically combines those concepts of rotational grazing and holistic management. It’s about returning carbon to soil. Selfishly, those practices make sense to a rancher because you can grow more grass, stock more animals and make more money, and produce a healthier meat product. But it’s equally important environmentally.” – Jon

 

Introducing a Brand

Like most ranches, Roam Free sells fresh cuts direct to consumers. From the beginning, they struggled with how to make their bison meat more available. They also were frustrated with the reality that ranching is a low-margin industry and most large brands aren’t willing to pay more for how you raise your herd. 

Through the internet, Jon and Brittany saw how the food system could become more transparent, how they could get in front of consumers who cared about where their food came from – and launched their brand. They’re focused on helping consumers understand how their eating decisions benefit the land. 

“We saw a massive opportunity to create a beacon. Consumers are incredibly smart and underestimated by a lot of brands. They care more about what they put in their body and will hunt to the ends of the earth to find the right thing. And that's where our brand sits – with the consumer that really cares, who’s interested and willing to investigate. They want the absolute best that they can find and they want to know that the product is real and honest. We created a brand to capture and serve people better, and to stop giving away the margin for all of our hard work.” – Jon

 

A Patient Path to Growth

Sticking to an authentic process, however, limits how quickly and widely Roam Free can go with its products. They’re taking the long view – ensuring that margin expansion doesn’t cost them control or impact their ability to remain true to their ideals. 

“When you give up that control to scale up, you’re not able to structure your business appropriately. You might co-pack or source in a bigger way and you end up sacrificing your authenticity. And the person that ends up losing at the end of the day is the consumer. For us, being regenerative is trying to do the best that we can do in every moment, making sure we’re making the best products we can.” – Jon

 

A Better Way to Eat

From the beginning, Jon and Brittany have focused on many of the same things other brands must address: convenience, shippability, shelf life. As a health food brand, particularly bison, Roam Free was also challenged to make sure their products tasted great – distilling perceptions that bison and health foods had to be “choked down”. Using a reverse engineering approach, they partnered with well-known chefs to develop healthy recipes with complementary ingredients that taste great.

Consumers who care about their health are becoming more aware of the value of regeneratively grown food. Many times this discovery is driven by a personal health issue and a lengthy healing journey. They find that people try all sorts of diets and foods but bison is the one that eventually works and sticks. Which is not surprising given the fact that Bison is not only easily digestible but also incredibly nutrient-dense. 

“We don’t want a consumer to have a bad experience. We want them to experience good taste and recognize that bison is the best option for their health. We have a responsibility to educate every moment that we can – whether it’s social media or store demos. Consumers are hyper-smart and aware, and they’re finding our brand on their own. There will always be those diet extremists at the fringe, but most people want healthy food with high nutrient density. ” – Jon

 

Why Regenerative?

Raising bison regeneratively requires a lot of patience and creativity. Bison are wild animals, and unlike cattle, they can’t be easily packed together and pumped full of grain. They need land. And unlike others raising bison who supplement grazing with grains to add fat and pounds, Roam Free Ranch relies solely on managed pasture grazing.

Working closely with the local university and Western Sustainability Exchange, as well as a carbon program run by Native Energy, Roam Free is carefully monitoring everything from their soil, carbon intake, water infiltration and quality, biodiversity and more – and adjusting grazing habits around those metrics. The result is bison that don’t need vaccines or dewormers, have a higher mineral count in the meat, and become healthier animals with better conception rates and calving – and ultimately a better product for the consumer.

“Bison are incredibly capable animals on their own. We’re just optimizing the environment for them, and there’s a lot of science that goes into that. We’re rotating them, ensuring they end up with better grass, more carbon in the ground. A pillar of our brand is that we really, really do care about what we're doing. We care about feeding people well, feeding and treating the animal well, and optimizing that. There’s an extreme dichotomy between a huge food company motivated by a paycheck and Roam Free, where we’re personally interested in and passionate about what we do.” – Jon

 

Our Path to 50% Market Share 4 Regen

Jon believes consumers have to be activated to care more, and for many, that catalyst is health. There’s enough research that proves people can do something about their degraded health. The trick is getting the consumer to start making the right choices when it comes to the food they eat, and the right brands being there for them.

“We are being honest, educating in the right way. We’re representing what our brand really is. As people continue to get smarter, using tools like the internet to educate themselves, they will continue to seek out these better products. I’m not sure if it will still be called regenerative, but the same concept will become more honed and focused as time moves forward.” – Jon 

 

You can check out the full episode with Jon from Roam Free Ranch HERE.

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This ReGen Recap was produced with support from Kristina Tober