As the old Lone Star saying goes, real-life cowboy and cattle rancher Anthony Thomas wasn’t born in Texas, but he got here as soon as he could. As a kid, he dreamed of being a rodeo cowboy in Texas, raising cattle and owning a ranch. Now that he’s here, the ‘Aussie-Texan’ is working on getting his fellow Texans to eat better beef.

In 2020, Thomas found his award-winning professional rodeo career sidelined by the COVID-19 epidemic. The pro rodeo circuit was dormant while the pandemic surged worldwide and Thomas began reassessing the road ahead with a young family to think of.

After meeting his wife and settling in the Bayou City, Thomas established the Thomas Cattle Co. and began ranching west of the city, extolling the virtues of locally grown, chemical-free, ethically produced Angus beef. Thomas conveys the importance of buying directly from a ranch in Texas, cutting out the corporate middleman, and knowing where your beef is coming from.

Thomas’ history as a teenage Australian ranch hand, butcher and later a bull rider touring the United States informed his current incarnation as a bespoke cattle baron. He has discovered that his decades of ranching, rustling and riding horses and bulls could give him an edge when it came to running his own cattle business.