Four years ago, when a friend came to Brent Williams with a business proposal to launch an ostrich farm, the idea held more than professional appeal. Williams himself had developed a life-threatening allergy to red meat, triggered by tick bites.

The condition, known as alpha-gal syndrome, was first connected to a particular species of ticks roughly 15 years ago. Cases are climbing as more people report symptoms including hives, diarrhea and itchiness after consuming as little as a mouthful of red meat. Seafood and poultry are unaffected by the allergy — chicken, turkey and eggs remain safe to eat. The distinction comes down to biology: the alpha-gal sugar that triggers the reaction is found in most mammals but not in birds or fish, which is why meats outside the mammal family remain options for those with the syndrome.

So does ostrich meat qualify? Yes. The meat of the flightless bird is red, rich in iron, and closely resembles beef in both appearance and flavor — a rare combination for a bird, since most poultry is white meat, and the reason ostrich occupies a distinctive niche: it delivers a beef-like eating experience while staying outside the mammal meat group that alpha-gal sufferers must avoid.

"The people that have alpha-gal that I talked to that have tried an ostrich burger, most of them are almost in tears," said Williams, a nutritionist and partner at Alpha Roost Farms in Danville, Kentucky. They tell him, "You just don't know how bad I missed this."

Alpha Roost Farms plans to nearly double its herd by next year. It recently constructed a new barn for hatchlings of the birds, which are native to Africa and are the world's largest, standing nine feet tall (2.7 meters) and weighing more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms). The farm currently has more than 400 birds and expects that figure to reach 700 by next year.

W.D. King, owner of Alpha Roost Farms and the man who first pitched the ostrich idea to Williams, said interest from people with alpha-gal is helping fuel demand.

"People who haven't had a hamburger in six or seven years really want one," King said.

And they are prepared to pay for it: a pound of ground ostrich can cost more than $20, while choice cuts can sell for more than $40 — a premium reflecting both specialized husbandry and a customer base with few comparable alternatives.

"We have people that drive here from all over the state to get the ostrich," said Leah Gibbs, who runs Dry Branch Farm market in Danville, Kentucky, which sells ostrich cuts from Alpha Roost Farms. "They are elated to have something that's an alternative to beef," Gibbs said. "I mean, it tastes exactly like beef."

The Alpha-Gal Association, a nonprofit advocacy group offering online resources to people with the allergy, recommends ostrich as a beef-tasting dietary substitute.

In Texas, Boyd Clark, who operates a large ostrich farm, said he expects to expand his herd of roughly 1,200 birds by 50% next year. Clark has raised the big birds since the 1980s and said the small number of full-scale ostrich farms across the country are working to satisfy growing demand.

"We get calls weekly from various restaurants or even small stores in different parts of the country that you wouldn't think would even want to carry ostrich, but they're looking for it because they've got customers wanting it," said Clark, who runs Clark Ostrich Farm, about 90 miles (144 kilometers) northwest of Austin.

The current wave of interest follows a boom-and-bust cycle in ostrich farming during the 1990s, when many farms and investors rushed into the market without experience handling the wild birds.

"The U.S. producers that jumped both feet in in the '90s, they were all operating under the premise that these were 300-pound chickens," said Michael Lehman, vice president of the American Ostrich Association and an ostrich farmer in Oregon.

Those farms applied the high-density methods suited to chickens, but ostriches require free range space, Lehman explained. Yields fell short of expectations, supply failed to meet demand, and the industry collapsed under skyrocketing prices.

Lehman estimated that only about 10 to 15 farms with large ostrich herds operate today, and these producers have a far better grasp of the animals' behavior and free-range needs. That small producer base means the current demand surge — driven partly by alpha-gal customers — is being absorbed by a fraction of the operations that existed during the 1990s peak, and expansion plans at farms in Kentucky and Texas suggest how producers are responding.

Williams received his alpha-gal diagnosis seven years ago. His first allergic reaction struck in 2017 after he ate a steak sandwich while traveling for work — something he had done hundreds of times before. Seeking answers for the puzzling and painful flare-up, he visited an allergist.

"The very first visit, he asked me, 'Have you been bitten by a tick?' I just laughed and said, 'Sure, hundreds,'" recalled Williams, who has spent most of his life raising livestock on farms where ticks are abundant.

The tick that bit him carried the alpha-gal sugar, which is present in the meat of most mammals but not in humans. The sugar is harmless when eaten directly, but not when introduced through tick saliva. Once it entered Williams' bloodstream, it triggered an immune system reaction. The antibodies produced by that reaction learned to identify and attack alpha-gal sugar molecules, rendering mammal meat toxic to his body.

Alpha-gal syndrome is a recent arrival in medical research, with a 2011 paper first linking it to tick bites. A 2023 government report put the number of people in the U.S. with the allergy at about 100,000, though experts believe many people are unaware they have it and that the true figure could approach half a million. Last year, researchers documented the first known death associated with alpha-gal, after a 47-year-old New Jersey man died in 2024.

After his diagnosis, Williams had to cut out all mammal meat — even grill fumes and gelatin coatings on pills were off limits.

"It's been eight years, but I still vividly remember how sick I was," Williams said.

When he finally tried ostrich meat for the first time, he said it was the closest thing to beef he had tasted in years. His wife bought some online, and he cooked an ostrich steak.

"The mouth feel, the taste, the texture, it brought me good memories … because there's only so many ways you can cook a chicken," Williams said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.