The Burgesses strive to provide the healthiest beef they can
ROLAND, OKLA. – The origin story of the Soggy Bottom Cattle Co. is unique, to say the least. It involves tragedy, found love, inspiration and a bout of two left feet.
“I lost my first wife to Lou Gehrig’s disease and afterward ran into a childhood friend. We grew up together and we were both in a spot in our lives where it just worked and we fell in love with one another and got remarried and it’s just been perfect,” explained James Burgess, co-owner of Soggy Bottom Cattle Co. “But we decided to buy a farm and when we got ready to buy the farm, I told her I needed to know how much I’m going to have to replace. We were walking the perimeter and we got to the little creek and I heard something behind me. Well, she had busted her kester right there in the mud when I helped her up. Her imprint of her butt was in the mud and that’s what we burned on our ranch. Buy your beef between the creek and cheeks.”
James and Elizabeth’s Burgess’s start in the cattle industry exemplifies the type of attitude and spirit they have brought with them to what many might consider a staid and stoic business. But they have shown over the past two years, it doesn’t have to be that way and still be successful.
The Soggy Bottom Cattle Company sits on 60 acres of ranch land in Roland (Ok.). According to James, they injected 18,000 pounds of beef into the food system in 2024. They expect to surpass 25,000 this year.
Soggy Bottom does this by streamlining the business and cutting out unnecessary steps.
“We raise farm-to-table beef for consumers,” said James. “We sell beef to families to put in their freezer to feed their families. We cut out the feedlots, we cut out the retailers. You buy it direct from us, we take it to the packer. We cover the processing. So, when we sell the hot carcass weight on the rail, we bill the customer at the end. Then they just go to the packing house and pick up their meat once it’s processed.”
The cattle at Soggy Bottom are made up of Angus Steers. According to James, they looked at other breeds, but in the end, they just followed the lead of what their customer base wanted.
“I personally think of black bald face or Charolais or Simmental, they eat just as well as the Angus,” James said. “But I truly believe the Angus Association has done a tremendous job of educating Joe Public about Angus cattle. When you walk through the supermarket, there’s not a package in there that says certified Charolais. It says, “Certified Angus.” And that’s what our customers are seeing because we’re not selling to people that raise their own beef. We’re selling to people that live in town that just want to buy directly from the farm, and that’s the knowledge that they have.”
The Burgesses also make sure they provide the healthiest beef they can.
“We don’t put our cattle in a feedlot to make them fat. We never pen our cattle. We let them run open range throughout the entire process that last 90 days,” James said. “We rolled grain bunkers into the field and give them full feed. They’ve got a choice of grass or grain to finish out on, and I’m convinced our beef, because they are running open, they’re not in a confined feedlot standing in their own excrement, they’re just a happier animal. There’s no stress of being in a confined area. We don’t have sickness that a lot of feedlots have. We don’t use antibiotics. We don’t have to. We have healthy animals.”
James said that knowledge is something the Soggy Bottoms customers are looking for after going through the pandemic years. He admits this idea of being all-natural and open-range probably wouldn’t have worked a decade ago.
“You might think I’m crazy, but everything has come just at the right time,” said James. “I give God the credit for it. I really do. And with the way that there’s a revolution going on right now, people are wanting to take control of their food source again, and we have just been blessed to hit it at the right time.”
Soggy Bottom is more than just a cattle ranch. They produce honey from their own colony of bees and sell Soggy Bottom apparel in 27 retail stores around the state.
But it’s Elizebeth’s work in finding ways to not waste any part of steer that really showcases their determination to take care of their product while also making a profit as well.
“My wife has done a tremendous job of learning how to utilize every part of that animal from the tango to tail,” James said. “We educate our customers on what to do with those, because when a housewife goes to the grocery store, she buys three pieces of meat. She’s either going to buy roast ground beef or steak. When you get a whole calf or half a calf, you get everything that was on that animal. She’s taught people how to claim your bones at the packer and take them home and make bone broth. She’s taught people how to utilize the tongue to make tongue tacos. She’s taught them how to utilize the oxtail and make oxtail soup or oxtail tacos. In the last three or four months, she’s learned how to render the fat, and now is selling tallow face cream and cooking tallow.”
Other items such as face cream made from kidney fat, chapstick, beeswax and fat frankincense, can only be found and bought at their farm store, which James said they can’t keep on the shelves.
Yet, the Burgesses aren’t looking to get any bigger than they are now. With the bulk of their sales coming from online and word of mouth, they are content and that means more than money.
“I’ve had real problems in this world. Problems that money wouldn’t fix with my first wife,” James said. “If God just allows us to keep doing what we’re doing, making new friends, that’s good enough for me.”
