Tanka Bars closes multi-million-dollar deal

KYLE – Pine Ridge Indian Reservation-based Native American Natural Foods, the maker of Tanka Bars and Tanka Bites, announced July 16 that it has closed a multi-million-dollar deal with a couple of investment groups that will help it reclaim its national market position.

When Native American Natural Foods introduced the world to its bison-and-berry snack food, a modern version of a centuries-old uniquely American Indian recipe, the novelty represented a vision of social entrepreneurship promoting a native business model, returning buffalo to its habitat, reservation employment, and healthy eating.

Seeing the products’ initial popularity nationwide, rival startup companies soon injected copycat goods into the distribution chain, and with no such strings attached to community development in their corporate portfolios, easily secured major name-brand buyouts cornering part of what had been Tanka’s shelf space.

For the past two years Native American Natural Foods has been struggling to regain its place in the retail competition — without sacrificing its mission, President and CEO Dawn Sherman told the Native Sun News Today.

Finding investors willing to support continued Native American majority shareholder ownership with community resilience goals was the main challenge, she said.

“You usually have to give up part of that,” she said. But in this case, “I welcome our investors, who have the courage and innovation to break the economic isolation of the reservation and move with us into a new economic future.”

The Candide Group, which promotes principled investing with social values, went to bat for Native American Natural Foods, structuring a formula that attracted investors willing to take on the equity capital responsibility of the business.

The group specializes in financial activism to benefit causes of underserved Black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC), and others with minority status, who historically are survivors of discrimination. It “directs capital away from an extractive global economy towards investments dedicated to social justice and sustainability,” it says.

Founding Partner Aner Ben-Ami said Native American Natural Foods “has all the ingredients needed to be successful: superior products with a loyal customer base, and a community of employees, suppliers and partners for whom failure is simply not an option.”

Chief among the new investors Candide fetched is the donor-advised Libra Social Investment Fund, consisting of an eight-women team in San Francisco. Their Libra Foundation makes direct investments in businesses and social enterprises that are mission driven.

With Libra’s support, the Candide Group is excited to “help the company realize its potential while supporting its mission of creating wealth and ownership for native communities and ranchers, and building a native-led brand committed to traditional values and regenerative agriculture,” Ben-Ami said.

Another donor-advised fund at California’s Highlands Associates was “proud to partner with Native American Natural Foods and looks forward to the future growth and success of this company!” said Ann Whittemore, Highlands Associates’ Director of Impact Investments.

A socially responsible investment firm, Highlands Associates specializes in supporting “local regenerative economy — sustainable food, farming and forestry, and renewable energy,” particularly in small towns and native communities, according to its mission statement.

“Native American Natural Foods is one of those quintessential companies whose success benefits the larger community,” Whittemore said. She counted its “commitments to native ownership, to the land and restoration of traditional bison, to healthy foods and sustainable practices, as well as to their native cultural values,” as qualities that make it “an important leader in a resilient, regenerative economy.”

These investors join Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution (Clearinghouse CDFI), in backing Native American Natural Foods. Recognizing the Tanka maker as “one of only a few non-gaming companies to succeed on an Indian Reservation,” the financiers have been helping keep the small business afloat since 2011 with loans and grants.

Clearinghouse CDFI has provided money from the major banks that are its shareholders to sustain Native American Natural Foods’ growth and reservation employment. President and CEO Douglas Bystry said, “Being involved with Native American Natural Foods has been a privilege and a humbling honor.”

Clearinghouse CDFI’s mission is to “bridge the gap between conventional lending standards and the needs of low-income, distressed, and communities of color.” Bystry lauded “the founders, leaders and partners of Native American Natural Foods” for having “blended a proud and resilient heritage with a disciplined business culture that is intentional about achieving sustainable profits and mission goals.”

He noted, “Wealth building in Indian country is far reaching and we want to be there with Native American Natural Foods each step of the way,” adding, “We are proud to be part of a group of committed lenders, investors, partners, suppliers and customers who have come together because of (its) people, purpose and, of course, its awesome products.”

Those products, which retail for under $5, have evolved to include three flavors: Slow Smoked Original, Spicy Pepper, and Apple Orange Peel. The recipe is based on a traditional Lakota dish called wasna, a dried pounded meat and chokecherry patty.

Today’s version is made with wild grass prairie-fed bison, like its predecessor, then paired with cranberries and Native American grown wild rice. It has seven grams of protein, is minimally processed, and has no nitrites or nitrates, antibiotics or added hormones. It is free of gluten, MSG, nuts, Tran’s fats, soy and lactose, and rich in Omega-3 fatty acids.

The investment announcement is the second this year in Native American Natural Foods’ strategic partnering campaign. Earlier the reservation business obtained operating, marketing, communication, technical and financial support from Niman Ranch, the leading U.S. brand in the market for humanely and sustainably raised meat, which fosters more than 750 independent farmers and ranchers.

Niman Ranch, an arm of Perdue Premium Meat, is working to help build a Tanka Regenerative Agriculture Coop (TRAC) for tribal members to receive guaranteed meat sales contracts with both Native American Natural Foods and itself.

Niman Ranch General Manager Chris Oliviero said the new deal, boosting “the financial independence of the native owned and operated Tanka, goes to the heart of our mission to support sustainable agriculture and resilient rural communities.”

The deal is also good news for Rocky Mountain Natural Meats, which supplies much of the bison processed in Tanka snacks. “Congratulations to the team at Native American Natural Foods. This has been a long time coming,” said CEO Bob Dineen.

He said it should help “introduce Tanka to more consumers nationwide.” To “be tanka” means to “live life powerfully, in harmony with your spirit and with the earth,” product labeling states.

Mark Tilsen Sr., Native American Natural Foods co-founder (with former President and CEO Karlene Hunter), said they created their business and product in 2006 with a vision of “a reservation-based brand capable of helping to build a new economic future for the Lakota people. This new structure with our investors and partners will help make this shared vision a reality,” he said.

Sherman, who took the reins from Hunter in 2019, recognized that theirs is one of the scant enterprises that has survived long enough to have a second generation Native American woman as president and CEO. “We celebrate the vision that will return the bison to the lands, lives and economies of native communities,” she said.

Their goal is to return 1 million acres of native lands to buffalo, to promote prosperity and wellness in reservation communities.

 

(Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com)

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