Like a lot of people, the Osage Nation has had trouble during the pandemic finding meat for its food programs for tribal members.

And it was ironic considering the nation has a 43,000 acre ranch with lots of cattle and bison.

But what they didn’t have was a way to process the meat to USDA standards.

“There’s a lot of rules when you put food into what they call the ‘stream of commerce,’ and we got busy with that,” said Osage Nation Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear .

Extremely busy as it turns out.

They cut the ribbon on Monday on a brand-new 19,000 square-foot processing plant that was essentially created from scratch in just a matter of months.

The nation says they’ll now have plenty of locally-raised beef, bison, and pork.

The Chief says Nation leaders did a magnificent job to finish such a complicated project in a very short amount of time.

Cox Media Group