Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Bridgford Beef Jerky - Teriyaki

Bridgford Beef JerkyBridgford is a brand of meat snacks and deli meats that goes back to 1932. Their products have a very strong presence here in Southern California, largely due to them having gotten there start here, and having their headquarters here.

Interestingly, all of their beef jerky varieties are stamped with a graphic claiming to have received the 2006 award from the Chefsbest "Best Taste Award". Chefsbest is an award designated by the American Culinary Institute.

Taste

The package lists the following ingredients: beef, soy sauce, sugar, sake, water, brown sugar, seasoning blend, salt, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite. It also lists Maltodextrin (similar to Splenda) as an ingredient of their seasoning blend.

What I mostly taste is the teriyaki flavor. The flavor is rather mild. When I chew on a piece, and suck out the flavor, I get a fair amount of flavor. Some pieces have more flavor, and some other pieces have very little flavor.

I don't really taste much of the natural beef flavors at all. In fact, some pieces seem to have a faint meat flavor, but it doesn't taste like beef, more like ham or turkey. It's hard to tell.

There is also very little saltiness, which is something I like.

Meat Consistency

These do appear to be real cuts of meat.

Some pieces are sliced thick while others are sliced medium, and cut into medium sizes. There is some marbilization of fat, but it's difficult to see. I found some small pieces of tendon here and there, but all small enough to swallow.

These are soft pieces for the most part, and while some pieces are relatively moist, most of them are somewhere between moist and dry. I did find a few pieces to be rather dry and tough. Overall, these jerky pieces offer great snackability.

Product Value

This was purchased at a Walgreens store in Menifee, CA and had a price of $3.99 per 3 ounce bag. That works out to $1.33 per ounce, putting it into the average ballpark, but at the lower end. Walgreens has a deal where if you buy two bags, you get them at $3.50 per bag, making it $1.17 per ounce. Overall, this is a good price for jerky.

Brigdford's Teriyaki beef jerky is a pretty good value taking into account the average price point, its good (but not phenomenal) teriyaki taste, and its great snackability.

teriyaki beef jerky

teriyaki style jerky

Rating

Bridgford beef jerky nutrition factsI'm giving this an "average" rating.

I really couldn't find anything that stood out as being remarkable, not enough to catapult it into a higher rating. Basically, this is your "garden variety" big brand jerky. It does offer good teriyaki taste, but almost none of the natural beef flavors.

For the most part the pieces are soft, and somewhat moist, and averaged sized. It's a good jerky for watching television with, or passing the time away while driving. But it's not something you're going to relish as a beef jerky connoiseur.

Rating: Average

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5 comments:

  1. The beef jerky sold in Tampa, FL has the tendernees of shoe leather, excuse me, the bottom of the shoe.
    It works better as a dog treat than something a human would want to eat. Personally, I think the plastic bag that the food comes in would more tender.
    Quality control should have better standards. I'm sure you don't have too many repeat customers.
    There you go, either up your quality of your product or go into the dog treat business.

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  2. Not the best but I haven't found any other Teriyaki with 0 carbs...

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  3. I bought a 3oz bag of this from walmart today. Its not bad and its not great...i probably wouldnt buy this brand again.

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  4. I ordered direct from Bridgford.com I selected 2 day shipping. 2 days has passed and the product still hasn't shipped.

    Cant say that I would recommend buying from them.

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  5. You can't always blame the manufacture for shipping it's the post office that should be blamed, they have 2 speeds slow and slower and I can vouch for this! I sent some packages out 2 weeks before Xmas paid for 2 day and it took 10 DAYS!! Once a package has left the manufacture or whomever it's in the post offices hands and they take there DAM sweet time, ever stand in line at the post office if not try it you'll see what I mean!!!

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