· By Ethan Whitfield
What Is a Pemmican Bar?
A pemmican bar is dried meat and rendered fat, pressed into something you can carry. That is the short answer. Here is the longer one.
Where pemmican comes from
Pemmican is Indigenous food technology. Peoples across North America made it by drying meat, pounding it fine, and binding it with rendered fat, sometimes with dried berries. The result was dense, light, and stable enough to travel with for long stretches.
It solved the problem every traveler has: how do you carry a lot of energy in a small space without it spoiling? Nothing I have found solves it better.
What happened to pemmican?
I honestly do not know. Somewhere along the way, the best preserved food ever made fell out of fashion. Convenience won, and chemical preservatives took over the shelf.
Why has no one made pemmican a household name? I could not tell you. I can tell you it is hard. Turning a very old recipe into something nourishing and delicious, in more than one flavor, that comes out the same every time took us a long while to get right.
We did it anyway. From our kitchen to yours.
What is in a BIVI bar
Every BIVI bar starts the same way. The first two ingredients on every label are grass-fed beef and grass-fed beef tallow.
From there, each bar is built with a short list: organic cocoa butter for texture, amaranth flour, carrot fiber, apple cider vinegar powder, organic celery powder, organic beetroot powder, and Redmond Real Salt. Five of our six flavors add honey and date paste for a touch of sweetness. Primal does not.
What you will not find: protein isolates or seed oils.
The six flavors
| Flavor | What it tastes like | Protein | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas BBQ | Savory and smoky, with tomato, cumin, and chili | 20g | 350 |
| Wild Berry | Strawberry and blueberry with a little honey | 20g | 350 |
| Jalapeño Lime | Heat up front, citrus behind it | 20g | 350 |
| Ronin Fire | Miso, ginger, and chili. Made with Ronin Tactics. Contains soy. | 20g | 350 |
| Fudge Brownie | Cocoa and maple, closer to dessert | 20g | 360 |
| Primal | Beef, fat, salt, and pepper. No honey, no dates, 0g sugar. | 30g | 410 |
Every bar is 2.8 oz (80g). Full nutrition facts for each flavor are on our Ingredients and Nutrition page.
How it is different from jerky or a protein bar
Jerky is lean meat, dried. It is mostly protein, and you are hungry again in an hour. A typical protein bar gets its protein from an isolate and its texture from binders.
Pemmican starts with the whole cut of meat, dried and ground fine, connective tissue included. That is where collagen comes from, so the protein in the bar is the protein of the beef itself. Then it is bound with rendered fat. Tallow holds the bar together and helps it keep, and fat is the most energy-dense fuel there is: 9 calories per gram, more than twice what protein or carbohydrate carries. Each BIVI bar has 23g or more of fat alongside the protein, which is why one bar eats like a meal. The texture surprises people. It is soft, closer to a dense brownie than to anything you have to tear with your teeth.
When to eat one
Anywhere a real meal is not an option. On a trail, in a tree stand, between meetings, after the gym, in an airport. It needs no refrigeration, so it can ride in a pack or a truck until you need it.
If you are new to pemmican, start with the Variety Pack and find your flavor.
Eat real. Carry less. Go farther.