Standing out from the herd

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When Erick Doyle started his company in the mid-’90s, he had no formal training as a farmer, and was concerned about how expensive the price for land was in New Jersey. So he chose a niche market that would afford him a little freedom to experiment and make mistakes.

In fact, his category is so niche that Readington River Bison Farm is the only bison farm in the state.

“In order to make a living in farming, you either have to be at the top of your game or, in my case, have a unique product,” Doyle said.
Doyle used to offer his products wholesale and receive product from other bison farms, but he has changed his practices during the farm’s 15 years. But that created a host of problems — making deliveries, charging less, waiting on late payments and “I kept running out of stock, my burger meat, in particular,” Doyle said — and he closed his wholesale accounts two years ago. “I never looked back,” he said.

Burger meat and steaks aren’t the only products offered at the bison farm. There are a number of value-added items for sale, such as hot dogs and popular raviolis, which are made by a Vineland producer. As he’s no longer in wholesale, Doyle’s products can only be bought on his farm — but some local restaurants have continued to buy the meat.
Chris Connors, chef and owner of Anton’s at the Swan Restaurant, of Lambertville, started buying meat from Doyle five years ago. And though they haven’t done
as much business since the wholesale

accounts closed, Connors still gets requests from customers, even though it’s been a
few months since he last had bison meat on the menu.
“Because I drive by there once in a while, I may just go and pick it up, because I want to put it on the menu again,” he said.

The bison farm’s meat is in such high demand that Doyle decided to pull out of the Flemington farmers market, where he had set up shop last year. He’s worried he’ll sell too much and start running out of inventory, leading to income gaps.
“If I was to sell nine months out of the year or close down for December, January, February, then come Thanksgiving time, I better have a lot of money in the bank ready to support me, because the bills won’t stop coming in,” he said.

But Doyle said he won’t be expanding his herd to meet rising demand, and he’s no longer importing from other farms, either. All 220 acres he owns are being used for pasture or to grow hay for the bison to eat, and he can’t expand without crossing a road or into someone else’s property. But since Doyle and his father are the only two working the farm — with the occasional summer volunteer — he’s not looking for any more work.

And Doyle has high standards for what he sells, especially since bison meat is roughly 50 percent more expensive than beef. In November, he decided he was unhappy with
the quality of the outsourced meat coming from other farms, and said he’d sell only what he raised at Readington River.

“I’m not selling bread and jam and all sorts of stuff,” he said. “All you’re getting is meat. And if people are still coming down here for that reason alone, then I have to know that I’m doing something right by making something of good quality.”
Of course, with bison as rare as they are in New Jersey, many of the customers come just to see the herd, which can be spotted even from the road. According to Doyle, the first question someone usually asks is, “Where are the buffalo?”
“That gets to me, because I’ve been sitting behind a desk all day, and these animals move around,” Doyle said. “They would know better than I would.”

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