Big John's Beef Jerky - BBQ

Last week I posted a review for Big John's Beef Jerky - Original, and gave it a "best" rating. I wanted to follow up with a review of their BBQ variety. The Big John's brand belongs to SME Foods, LLC out of York, PA.

It's run by a husband and wife team of Bill & Renee Lenzer, who met each other while working for Pizza Hut. Renee's father John was a jerky aficionado and developed a killer recipe. Bill, on the other hand, never cared much for jerky until he tried his father-in-law's stuff. That's when he became a fan, and came up with the idea of turning it into a business. Big John's Beef Jerky has been around since 2002, and is growing quickly.

The company smokes their jerky over hickory wood chips for a full 14 hours, and also offers a "Fiery Hot" and "Teriyaki" varieties.

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KC's Old Style Beef Jerky - Teriyaki

KC's Old Style Beef Jerky is produced by KC's Old Style, Inc., out of Vancouver, WA. According to the brand's website, it's staffed by a small four-person business headed by a guy named KC Mittleider.

It's not clear to me where this meat was inspected and handled. The packages are not marked with a USDA Establishment Number, and after searching through the USDA Establishment Directory, I couldn't find anything that matched on the name. The package only says that it was made in Orchards, WA, which happens to match the business' address. I'm left wondering if KC manufactures this jerky out of his home? I put a call into him to get more information, and left a message. I haven't heard back yet.

According to the company literature, they smoke their jerky with a blend of Hickory and Northwest Alder, and then run it through a flavor tumbler.

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Dollar Tree Greenbrier Beef Jerky - Original

The Dollar Tree chain of discount stores sells this package of jerky depicted here. But if you look at the package, there's no brand name on it. If you look at the back of the package, it says it's distributed by Greenbrier International. Greenbrier does all the importing and sourcing of products sold at Dollar Tree stores.

And Greenbrier is a subsidiary of Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. This is basically Dollar Tree's store brand jerky. I think the reason why there's no brand name on it is because Greenbrier also distributes products for other discount stores; I'm guessing this allows those stores to carry the same package without having Dollar Tree's name on it.

It was actually manufactured by Mirab USA, a large private labeler of beef jerky. Mirab makes jerky for hundreds of store brands. This particular jerky is a chopped & formed style, and appears to be the same jerky that Mirab makes for other stores, including Rite Aid, and Walgreens, which I've reviewed earlier.

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BS Brand Beef Jerky - Original

BS Brand Beef Jerky is a small jerky manufacturer based out of Midland, TX. It was started by a guy named Billy Stewart, who started out making jerky for himself and his friends. And like with many other rags-to-riches jerky manufacturer stories, demand grew for his jerky and he decided he had something on his hands worthy enough to start a business on.

In addition to this original variety, BS Brand also offers a Jalapeno variety (review coming soon), as well as Tex Mex, and Barbecue varieties.

Stewart makes his jerky out of his own USDA approved facility, where it's all hand made, hand cut, and where even the bags are filled by hand. With so many hands touching this jerky, it's good to know its a USDA approved facility...

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The Jerky Guy - Teriyaki

The Jerky Guy is a brand belonging to a company called Better Than Yours, Inc., based out of Jackson, CA.

It was started by Jon Beltran, the "jerky guy" himself, about 27 years ago after experimenting with jerky in his backyard smoker. After perfecting a basic recipe , he approached an old co-worker who had built up a reputation for developing a really mean teriyaki sauce. Beltran was able to get that recipe and incorporated it into his beef jerky.

I had talked to Beltran over the phone about his products, and he describes this particular teriyaki as a Hawaiian style. He said one time after handing out samples to some Japanese people, they looked up at him in amazement and wondered how he was able to get true teriyaki flavor in a jerky.

And having grown up with a Japanese mother, and actually living in Japan for a short while, I'm very intrigued by this claim.

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Walnut Grove Market Beef Jerky - Original

Walnut Grove Market is the store brand of Longs Drug Store. Longs Drug Store is a chain of 500+ drug stores across Calfornia, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii. The name "Walnut Grove Market" probably comes from the company being headquartered in Walnut Creek, CA, a town that was historically known for its walnut groves.

Just last Fall, Longs Drug Store was purchased by CVS Caremark.

Longs Drug Stores doesn't make its own jerky. It's actually made by Jack Link's. Walnut Grove Market also offers jerky in a peppered, and teriyaki variety.

I note that the "Best By" date on this is Feb 2009, just a week away from this review.

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Big John's Beef Jerky - Original

Big John's Beef Jerky is a brand of SME Foods, LLC out of York, PA. The company has been around since January 2002.

It all got started by the husband and wife team of Bill & Renee Lenzer, who met each other while the two were employed by Pizza Hut. It turns out that Renee's father, John, had a knack for making jerky, and it wasn't until Bill tried some of his jerky that Bill also became a jerky lover.

Both Bill and Renee got John's backing, and turned his unique recipe into the business of today. The company says they smoke their jerky over hickory wood chips for a full 14 hours.

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Route 66 Beef Jerky - Green Chile

Last week I published a review of Route 66 Beef Jerky - Original, and wanted to follow up with a review of their Green Chile variety.

Route 66 is a brand produced by Old Santa Fe Trail, Inc., based out of Albuquerque, NM. They've been making beef jerky since 1988, right off the old historic Route 66. Their jerky is made from their own USDA approved facility, staffed with a small crew of 9 people.

The company says that this green chile variety was made using chiles from the Hatch Valley of southern New Mexico. According to Matthew Chavez, the company's founder, Hatch is the chile capital of the world, saying that the people there have such a keen sense for chiles, they can taste one and tell which side of Interstate 40 it grew from.

It sounds like I'm in for a real treat.

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365 Organic Beef Jerky - Teriyaki

365 Organic is the store brand of Whole Foods Market. And Whole Foods Market is of course is the largest natural food store chain.

The beef jerky that Whole Foods Market sells under this brand is made by Intermountain Natural, LLC, out of Idaho Falls, ID. They're a meat processor that private labels organic jerky for brands, including Trader Joe's, Golden Valley Natural, and Jerky Direct. You can click those links and read all the reviews I've written.

While organic jerky always conjures up thoughts of real beef jerky, the way folks would have made it centuries ago, the fact is that all the organic jerky I've had thus is anything but. It's tasteless stuff, with a chewing texture that's clearly unnatural.

So why I do bother reviewing organic jerky? And why do I bother reviewing the same jerky from Intermountain Natural, brand after brand after brand? Well because it's yet another brand, and because people want to know about that specific brand.

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Safeway Beef Jerky - Peppered

Last Saturday I posted a review of Safeway Beef Jerky - Original, and mentioned that I had also picked up the peppered variety, and well, here it is.

I actually found this at a Vons grocery store, here in my area. Vons is owned by Safeway.

Safeway doesn't make their own jerky, this is made by Mirab USA, a producer of private labeled jerky, and which I believe is technically the third largest producer of beef jerky in the USA, behind Oberto and Jack Link's. Mirab makes most of the store-branded jerky in the States.

It's worth noting that this review sample is actually out of date. The "Best Before" date on this package is "20 Dec 08". I bought this package on 13 Jan 09, about 24 days after it expired. Obviously my local Vons store is having difficulty selling their own store brand jerky. I forgot to check the freshness date before buying this. The photos below show some white powdery stuff on the pieces, which I think is some kind of mold. This is obviously not a fair review.

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