Pete could squeeze into an extra-large T-shirt last summer, but he's outgrown it now so he just goes nude.

Au naturel.

That's how they roll at the Braun ranch. Natural. Uncomplicated.

Alvin Braun likes to hang with Pete and Pete's old man, Jester. He knows them. He feeds them by hand and scratches their backs.

And they scratch his.

The bulls on Braun's Burleigh County ranch help produce hundreds of calves every year, which are raised in North Dakota, slaughtered in North Dakota and sold in North Dakota. Pete was just 4 months old last June when Alvin and Juanita Braun opened North Dakota Branded Beef, the Bismarck store where they sell meat that has never been out of the state. He stood outside the store in a T-shirt, mooing.

Pete's pushing a thousand pounds now, and he's not the only thing that's growing rapidly.

So is the hankering for locally produced food. From beef and buffalo raised here to produce, honey and even wine, there is a growing demand in North Dakota for homegrown products.

Anecdotally, that growth has been by leaps and bounds. Folks like the Brauns, along with local foodies and vendors at the farmers markets, said more people are purchasing more locally produced food.

"People in my classes are starting to demand locally grown food," Char McLaughlin, who teaches cooking classes at Bismarck State College, said. "The interest is definitely growing."

But perhaps the best and most quantifiable evidence of the public's purchasing habits lies on retailers' shelves. That's where more Pride of Dakota products - foods and other items original to the state - have been appearing lately than ever before.

"When I started, getting stores to carry Pride of Dakota products wasn't even an issue. It was just nonexistent," Sara Wagner, who runs the Pride of Dakota program for the state agriculture department, said. "Now we get two or three stores a month that ask specifically how they can carry the products."

The reasons for the increased interest seem to come down to three things: trust, trends and tradition.

Trust

Eating locally grown food is not new, of course. It's as old as the first meal.

But as appetites for exotic tastes expanded and transportation became more reliable and economical, the area from which consumers purchased food grew considerably.

The average distance "from field to fork," as the U.S. Department of Agriculture likes to put it, is now 1,500 miles.

For the Brauns, though, it's closer to 15.

Jester and Pete roam with the other Angus and Simmental cattle near the Apple Creek, just east of Bismarck. Calves are fed a diet of North Dakota corn, peas and hay. When they close in on 800 pounds, the calves are sent to North Dakota feedlots, but the Brauns retain ownership. They run about 400 head now.

The calves are slaughtered at the plant in Harvey, which the Brauns purchased in September. The meat is dry-aged for a couple of weeks, flash-frozen and sent to the store on Broadway Avenue in Bismarck.

"There wasn't a lot of profit on the farm - we needed to do something, so we started to put more and more calves into the feedlot," Alvin Braun said. "We were watching all these calves leave to Nebraska, and meanwhile every buyer from the major feedlots were buying their good, quality cattle from North Dakota and Montana. Where was all our good meat going? Out of state. We thought there had to be a good way to keep the good meat here."

They started North Dakota Branded Beef, and the response has been positive. The customer base has grown and even includes restaurants, such as chef Stuart Tracy's Pirogue Grille in Bismarck. The Brauns still use only their own beef, but hope to branch out to include cattle from other local ranches.

"Just listening to what's happening at North Dakota Branded Beef, you can see what is happening here," said Karen Paetz, who runs the traditional-foods program at Bismarck's United Tribes Technical College. "When I go to the grocery store I look for those locally grown products. I want an idea of where it's coming from. I would much rather buy beef grown right here. You know the quality, you know what they grazed on. It all fits together in the scheme of they ate North Dakota corn, we eat North Dakota beef."

That trust is something local producers advertise and hope to capitalize on. Alvin Braun likes to say you know the parents of his cows, so you can trust them to be good. But the idea stretches to other foods, too.

Diane Schmidt, the secretary for the Mandan Farmers Market, said a lot more people are shopping at their stands each summer. Her market has gone from seven vendors to 20 in the last couple of years.

"I think in actuality people are more aware of their diets and want fresh-grown produce instead of chemicals going into their vegetables and fruits, which is what happens these days," Schmidt said. "They want to know where it's grown, and they want it grown locally."

One such customer, Mandan's Tone-Lise Stenslie, said it's up to consumers to dictate how much locally grown food is available.

"For me, the big thing when I buy locally is I know the people," Stenslie said. "I like to buy from the people who care about what they're growing. I like to support local farmers, especially those who do it organically. That's a way we make a change. Every time you buy something in the grocery store you cast a vote. You vote with your money, and that's how you can make a difference."

And retailers realize that.

Trends

As Wagner pointed out, more stores are stocking North Dakota food.

That's got to be because more people want it.

According to a state ag department survey last May, 85 percent of respondents said they'd specifically seek out locally made products. Nearly 80 percent of them said they were more likely to purchase a product if they knew it was produced in North Dakota.

You can add to that a national trend of consumers desiring local tastes.

Groups of "locavores," as they call themselves, are popping up around the country. Many of them set limits to how far away they can get their food. A common boundary is 100 miles (check out 100milediet.org or locavores.com), which is fine for some parts of the United States, but perhaps a bit ambitious for North Dakotans.

Still, the idea has its merits here, proponents say.

Chief among them might be the trust issue. As noted above, consumers are becoming more interested in knowing the origin of their food and even the people who raise it.

But there are some economics behind it, too.

Though food and other products from small businesses can cost more, a growing number of people appear willing to pay for them. Just more than half of the people who answered the ag department survey said they'd be willing to pay up to 10 percent more for products produced in North Dakota. Fourteen percent would pay up to 20 percent more for North Dakota goods.

Wagner said she gets two or three calls a week from consumers seeking Pride of Dakota products. The Brauns stock several Pride of Dakota items at their store, and said sales have been brisk.

Then, there are the hidden economics of shopping locally.

When the Brauns shipped their calves to feedlots out of state, they had to pay a transportation fee. Those fees trickle down to the consumer. And there are the added expenses to the wallet and environment of the extra oil and gas being burned on the long-distance hauls.

"In a time when we're supposed to conserve fuel, conserve energy, be more environmentally efficient, that is not an efficient thing," Alvin Braun said.

It's more efficient, he said, to keep things local. The support of smaller, local farms is something people like Stenslie and McLaughlin say could really catch on here.

"I think we're getting close to a time when people would like to buy into a produce co-op, where you get so many pounds of whatever's in stock at the moment," McLaughlin said. "I cross my fingers that it's coming. We're getting an influx of people from other areas of the country where they've had more sophisticated experiences with food. We in North Dakota deserve to have those better, more sophisticated experiences. That foodie stuff is growing, but I don't think it's reached a critical mass yet."

At the Pirogue Grille, chef Tracy has dubbed his fare "Prairie Cuisine," and said it's been a hit among diners seeking that local experience.

Tracy grows his own chokecherries for the restaurant's homemade chokecherry-chocolate praline ice cream. He gets his beef from the Brauns. The bison on the menu comes from a cooperative in New Rockford. He serves a barley pilaf as a sidedish and uses spuds from the Red River Valley for the Pirogue's mashed potatoes.

"More or less, we're the breadbasket of the world," Tracy said. "We produce more honey, sunflower, wheat than any other state in the nation. If we can use some of those products, then why not? It's going over extremely well."

Tradition

Maybe the greatest detriment, when people purchase all of their food from elsewhere, is a severed connection to the land around them.

Karen Paetz believes that can be true.

Her traditional-foods program at United Tribes reaquaints students with the land at a truly grassroots level. The courses teach students how to make careers in the fields of nutrition and food services by first putting them in actual fields.

"It's important to get out there, to do the work and then enjoy the fruits of your labor," Paetz said. "We train students in the area of ag science, but we keep everything culturally relevant. Gardening was one of the very significant components of our culture. We have to shop at the grocery store, of course, but it's important to maintain these elements of our culture."

There are three gardens on the United Tribes campus. Much of the produce winds up in the cafeteria. Gardeners focus particularly on traditional foods.

"We look at the food of our ancestors, the three sacred sisters of corn, beans and squash," Paetz said. "That was the main staple for the Northern Plains Missouri River tribes. Along with that is berries. We're looking at USDA grants to research the sustainability of the chokecherries, juneberries and buffaloberries here. Those foods sustained people's health. We're seeing major health impacts today because of the food products we consume, compared to the early years when our ancestors grew their gardens."

Paetz said gardens also were places where the people who tended them sang songs and passed down stories. Schmidt, the farmers market secretary in Mandan, said being in her garden just makes her feel better. She cans a lot of produce so that feeling can stretch into North Dakota's cold winter months.

Schmidt said farmers markets are not just getting bigger, but there also are more of them across the state. There are enough of them now that the ag department formed an association where members can take advantage of networking opportunities and a better marketing effort. The North Dakota Farmers Market and Growers Association has 52 member markets. It was formed in 2004.

"There has been a steady increase in the number of markets over the years," Stephanie Fox, the ag department employee who oversees the NDFMGA, said. "We stepped in to fill the need for a little more structure."

Gardens and farms haven't cornered the market on agricultural tradition in the state. Ranchers also are proud of their heritage, and their product.

"Every rancher in this state is proud of the cattle he produces. We need to keep that going," Alvin Braun said. "We had no intention of becoming rich from this, we just want to see the whole North Dakota industry happen. I love my cows. I like coming into the store and knowing that's my meat. Other ranchers would feel the same way. There's a pride there."

A pride in North Dakota. And it's swelling.

(Reach reporter Tony Spilde at 250-8260 or tony.spilde@bismarcktribune.com.)