The much-heralded market for ostrich has gone bust in Texas and other states, but the industry is doing so well in Utah that a Fillmore slaughtering plant can't get enough birds to meet the demand.
Some desperate Texas ranchers have even turned the big birds loose, and breeding pairs of birds that once sold for as much as $45,000 now are going for $500. Experts in Texas saidoverproduction was primarily to blame.But Garth Hansen, who runs an ostrich ranch in Kaysville, said things are different here.
"The ostrich industry in Utah is thriving and actually at a utopia stage. We have a good slaughtering facility, a good marketing company marketing the meat and a high demand for the meat," Hansen said.
"I don't know why the plants in Texas, Oklahoma, the Midwest and California went under - it must be the management. Our plant here is finding the meat very acceptable by people and by restaurants. Associated Food Stores are selling ground ostrich," Hansen said.
The Fillmore slaughtering plant is owned by the Intermountain Ostrich Cooperative, which also runs plants in Idaho and Ohio.
The Fillmore operation is the co-op's biggest plant and currently is butchering 125-150 birds per week, according to Rick White, vice president and general manager of Zion View Ranch in St. George.
Zion View is the largest ostrich ranch in the nation with 500 breeding hens, which are expected to produce 10,000 to 15,000 chicks this spring.
White's company also has been hired by the cooperative to handle marketing for the ostrich industry in this part of the country.
"This area will become the mecca for ostrich ranchers," White predicted. "It's dry, and ostriches love that, and we have a strong company. We're buying birds from all the surrounding states, with our focal point being the co-op birds."
The problems in Texas were "concentration and distance," White said. The Lone Star State had 28 percent of the ostriches in the country and only one slaughterhouse buying them. Moving birds long distances is difficult and not cost-effective because they lose weight.
As for Texas ostriches now being sold for about $500, White said that is a good return under normal circumstances.
"You can have 20-25 chicks or more per year per hen. It takes $250 in overhead to feed the bird, and you can take it to market in one year," he said. "There are people in the beef industry who would like that."
Utah's successful slaughtering and its strong marketing efforts also are being helped by the fact that more grocery chains want to stock ostrich meat as a regular offering. That would expose more consumers to a meat that traditionally has been seen as an upscale restaurant delicacy.
"People are hearing about it more and more. Once a person has tried it, the education is done - they like it, and we don't have any problems," White said. "If you didn't know what it was, you'd think it was beef."
White said ostrich meat is redder than beef, but with only 3 percent fat. It is close to chicken and turkey with respect to cholesterol and calories.
"You've got a poultry that looks and tastes like beef," he said.
Ground ostrich in this area currently is selling for $3-$4 per pound while filets go for $12-$16 per pound. The industry also produces ostrich sausages and a bone-in ham.
"We were in the Neiman-Marcus catalog this year, and it turned out very favorably," White said. He'd like to see the the bone-in ham sold in the store's Christmas and two epicurean catalogs next year.