Driving to the Source
Last April, Will Carr loaded his truck and drove 14 hours from Chicago to the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Not for a conference. Not for a photo op. To spend three days with the ranchers whose animals become our bars.
What follows is what he found.
Broken Arrow Ranch: The 40-Year Operation
The Halverson family has been raising bison on 18,000 acres since 1983. When the elk-hunting market started drawing attention to the land, Bill Halverson's father made a contrarian bet: bison, not cattle, because bison demanded nothing the land didn't already offer.
"We don't supplement their diet. We don't give them growth hormones. We move them the way they want to move," says Cody Halverson, third generation, now running daily operations.
The Halversons supply approximately 30% of Genesee's protein weight. Their herd is 100% grass-finished, never grain-finished before harvest. The omega-3 profile we cite in our nutrition facts is calibrated to their herd.
Prairie Wind: The Regenerative-First Operation
Amy and Dan Whitfield are newer to bison—they converted from cattle in 2016 after a drought made conventional grazing unsustainable. They've adopted mob grazing protocols that mirror the natural movement patterns of wild bison herds: high-density, short-duration rotational grazing that deposits more organic matter per acre than any tillage-based approach.
Their 6,000-acre operation in northeastern Wyoming is actively rebuilding topsoil. We visited one of their paddocks that was grazed 18 months ago—the grass density was visibly different from the ungrazed surroundings.
Yellowstone Heritage Bison
Our third supplier is the smallest—a 2,200-head operation near Cody, Wyoming—but has the most direct lineage to wild genetics. The Yellowstone Heritage herd was started with animals purchased from the National Park Service's conservation program, which maintains genetic diversity among bison closest to the original Great Plains herds.
Those genetics matter for flavor. Wild-adjacent bison produce a protein with a cleaner, slightly richer taste profile than commercially domesticated animals.
The Supply Chain Promise
All three ranches operate under annual supplier agreements that include:
- No hormone or antibiotic treatment
- Pasture access year-round (no feedlot finishing)
- Third-party humane handling audit before harvest
- GPS-tagged lot tracking from ranch to co-packer
When you bite into a Genesee bar, you're eating an animal that spent its entire life on grass in Wyoming or Montana. That's not a marketing claim. That's a supply chain we've personally visited and annually verify.