Why is so difficult to find healthy and inexpensive meats? The Bill Niman story tells some.
Why The Godfather Of Natural Beef Cut Ties With Niman Ranch
Bill Niman spent more than three decades building Niman Ranch into one of the most beloved natural meat suppliers in the nation from just 200 acres of land and six calves. Dozens of high-end chefs, including Jean-Georges and Alfred Portale, as well as the popular burrito chain Chipotle, post the Niman Ranch name on their menus like a badge of honor. But today, Niman has nothing to do with his namesake company. He severed ties in 2007 and began raising cattle and heritage turkeys on a new farm, called BN Ranch.
Niman started BN Ranch in Marin County, Calif., with his wife, Nicolette, to return to his passion of ranching and to prove that raising grass-fed, antibiotic- and hormone-free beef can be a sustainable business model.
“We’re at a point with the cattle business where we were in the early ’80s where we raised the animals without antibiotics and hormones and at that time, the industry laughed at the stuff we were talking about and doing,” he said. “Those things, fortunately, have now become mainstream.” BN Ranch cattle spend their entire lives grazing in open pastures.
I point out that Niman Ranch was profitable on the pork side, while the beef business had consistently lost money — mainly because Niman had insisted on buying cattle from his rancher network when they were ready for the feedlot. He had also insisted on owning the feedlot in which the cattle would be fattened up prior to slaughter. In contrast, Niman Ranch did not purchase pigs until they were slaughtered and then bought only as many as it could sell. On the pork side, the company avoided having capital tied up in inventory for long periods of time. But on the beef side, it had cows, barns, real estate, and feed, not to mention exposure to the risks posed by inevitable fluctuations in the prices of all four. Hurlbut and McConnell had argued that Niman Ranch could become profitable just by applying the pork business model to beef. Indeed, that’s essentially what Swain has done. Looking back, did Niman wish he had relented and let Hurlbut have his way?
“That’s a really tough question,” he says. He pauses. “Considering how much the values and ethos of the brand have changed, yeah, I think that would have been a better outcome. Rob would have done a better job of maintaining the values. Would I have been able to stay with it? I don’t know.”
Why not? “Well, remember I got into this because I had a ranch and needed to sell my livestock profitably. I really didn’t want to be in the meat business. As advantageous as it might seem on a spreadsheet to divest all the agricultural parts of the enterprise, that was not appealing to me. I also thought that our standing in the marketplace came from our involvement as ranchers. I wanted Niman Ranch to be the gold standard.”
He pauses again, and his mind wanders. “Yes,” he says at length, “if I had it to do all over, I wouldn’t have given up control, that’s for sure. How did it happen? Little by little, led on by delusions of grandeur and a big payday.” For a moment, he seems lost in thoughts of what might have been.
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