Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  01/06/2025

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  on Oct. 28, 2024 Family Pride Meats butchered our buffalo. Their invoice stated we paid for 612 pounds hanging weight. We paid $1.30 per pound. We picked up our meat Nov. 4, 2024. Unpacking the meat at home we realized we didn't have any ribs. We called ****** at Family Pride Meats and he stated he didn't know we wanted them. Even though we paid for them. There should have been approximately 16 pounds. ****** stated he would get them to us. He never did. We weighted all the meat we brought home which totaled 267 pounds. According to our example "Expected Meat Yield" we should have gotten 464 pounds. We feel we were shorted approximately 150 pounds of meat total. I called ****** to let him know we were shorted 150 pounds not just the 16 pounds of ribs. ****** stated it was all shot up and dirty from field dressing so he had to throw a lot of it away. Our attached pictures show it was transported in a pickup truck where it was dressed inside a clean shed. Also you can see the bullet hole was behind the front shoulder not in the shoulder so there wouldn't have been any meat damage. **** (Outfitter) from P****** *** ***** where we shot the buffalo also agreed with our statement since he was the one that dressed the buffalo and seen first hand it was not shot up and felt we should have gotten more meat back based on the hanging weight.

  

  Business response

  01/10/2025

  Family Pride Meats was established in 1981 and currently butchers and processes over 130 bison hunts’ a year, working with several Guide Services in the Area.  This is a 3rd generation family business.  Second generation head butcher, ******, has been butchering and processing bison for over 40 years and both the reputation of our business and our knowledge of butchering and processing bison is well known.  It is always our policy to make sure that cus***ers are satisfied with our service. 
  We charged him for 612lbs of hanging weight which is the weight after skinning and field dressing, but before cooling and deboning.  The approximate 4-year-old bison bull had muscle tissue damage to the shoulder area.   Shot placement caused blood shot damaged tissue along with bullet fragments dispersed in and around the area that the bullet traveled. Bison hunts are not cus*** kills by a butcher.  The Guide Service confirmed that the shoulder area was shot up. The chart from the Bison Specialist is based on a controlled kill not a bison hunt.  Unaware that *** wanted his ribs, the rib meat was deboned and added to the ground.  The age of the bison bull would have rendered tough rib meat anyway and even though we were unaware he wanted his ribs we offered to send him bison ribs from a younger cow which would be much more tender.  This is how we do business.
  Through the course of phone communication with the cus***er on delivery of complimentary ribs, he informed us that we shorted him approximately 150lbs of meat.  Later stating in a google review we shorted him 100lbs. of meat. We explained that he did receive all his meat.  Within days he and his partner began leaving poor google reviews for both our meat locker and the guide service, he stopped payment on the check he had written us which we collected by filing a small claims suit. We have never in over 40 years in business, had a cus***er stop payment on a check and this was the first time we have ever had to file a small claims suit against a cus***er.   When payment was eventually made, he threatened in a letter that “it will cost you much more from the business you will lose by the referrals you receive from us.”    Ribs were not sent immediately as we were trying to run a business during a very busy bison hunt season while also trying to figure out how to find a way to resolve this matter with the cus***er through communication with the Guide Service.   We were sincerely trying to resolve this.
  Working along with the Guide Service we were both able to provide, as a courtesy, bison meat from our own inventory including the ribs we had offered to send to the cus***er. The meat was picked up by the Guide Service for delivery to the cus***er last week.
  *** did receive all his bison meat when he picked up his bison. His efforts to get what he thought he deserved would have been better served by civil communication and a willingness to find resolution in a peaceful manner.    We have gone above and beyond and made every effort to satisfy the cus***er.  

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