Friday – Coastal Climbing holiday party and movie night! Passed out Jerky samples and hung with some awesome people!

Saturday – Fiddle Tree Maker’s Festival.  ”Friends doing stuff”.  Food cooked over an open flame, local artisans sharing in what they make, live music, and camping out on the farm.  One of the coolest events we’ve ever been a part of!

Sunday – we finished off the weekend sampling our Jerky at one of our newest retail locations – Earth Fare Charleston.  Met some awesome people and completely sold out of the first order the store placed with us earlier this week.  Couldn’t have been a better ending to an awesome weekend!

Half-Moon Outfitters Charleston Store

We’re excited to announce you can now find our Grass-Fed Jerky at all Half-Moon Outfitter’s locations here in the southeast.  Half-Moon Outfitters has been providing the Southeast with quality goods and services for adventure and travel since 1993. Half-Moon is the leading dealer of gear for stand up paddle boarding, kayaking, rock climbing, backpacking, hiking, trail running, surfing, travel and more outdoor adventure. Specializing in goods from The North Face, Patagonia, Chaco, Mountain Hardwear, Keen, Smartwool, and more, Half-Moon is proud to offer the best product knowledge and expertise in the Outdoor Industry.

On the Shelf at Earth Fare Charleston

Our Jerky and Trail Packs are now available at Earth Fare Charleston and Earth Fare Columbia. Earth Fare is the “Healthy Supermarket” with very high standards regarding what goes on their shelves.  Click here to learn more about their Food Philosophy. More locations coming soon!

Fired Urth - The Team at Fired Urth is known for thinking globally and acting locally. Utilizing and supporting local farms and other businesses is extremely important to them, as is offering  ingredients that are sustainable and responsible.   Who says you can’t buy Jerky at a Coffee shop?

Jerky, Chocolate and Coffee - 3 of our favorite things!

Our Local Foods – Sourcing the best in local, organic foods, this cafe, CSA, and farm has it going on.  From lunch to take home meals to fresh, local eggs, milk, meats, and produce, you can do all your food shopping here and be confident you are eating healthy!

Grab some local honey, fresh eggs, and Grass-Fed Jerky from The New Primal!

The Co-Op Sullivan’s Island.  During the Summer we can’t seem to stay away from this beautiful coastal island of Charleston, SC.  The CO-OP is Sullivan’s Island’s own Gourmet Grocery and Deli. Established in 2011, they provide natives and visitors alike with an amazing selection of fresh locally grown produce, high quality groceries, and those delicious made-to-order sandwiches and salads that are perfect for everything from quick lunches to a long, leisurely day on the beach! In the true sense of the word cooperative, the CO-OP serves to provide a central point of food commerce for the benefit of the community.

Easy answer is, it’s honestly expensive to make; very expensive in comparison to other snack-food products.  Some of the bigger players in the business have figured out how to make it less expensive to produce with their farming practices, large factory environments and tricky marinading processes. While we applaud the innovation and increased efficiencies of modern day jerky manufacturing, we do not agree with their agricultural practices and other ingredient additives that have become the “norm” in the jerky business over the last 30-40 years.  We’re out to change the public perception of Jerky and make it Healthy again.

Once used as high protein survival food by our ancestors hundreds of years ago is now perceived as an expensive, sodium loaded, heart-attack in a tacky bag that we purchase at our local convenience store.  Let’s be even more honest – most jerky you find at the convenience store or large retailer (Wal-Mart, Target) doesn’t even look like real meat anymore.  I think I just threw up in my mouth thinking about that.

The biggest issue in the cost of making Jerky is the “yield rate” of the meat.  For example, 10 lbs of raw meat after cooking/dehydrating equals 3-4 lbs of jerky (if you’re lucky).  It doesn’t take a math major to realize that losing 60-70% of the weight of the meat after cooking drastically drives up the cost of the meat.  We haven’t even talked about the cost of a marinade ingredients, labor, packaging, general business overhead (rent, insurance, lab tests, inspections, utilities, marketing, equipment maintenance, etc.).

So what’s a jerky business to do to actually make a profit.  The first answer is like all business models – cut costs (aka, lower quality meat – factory farms in the meat business). The second answer is to get a better “yield rate” on the meat.  The primary way to get a better yield rate on jerky is to add salt and (more importantly) SUGAR.  During the cooking process, SUGAR does not “cook out” like traditional spices and liquids do and ultimately help the meat maintain weight.  It’s almost a 1:1 ratio sugar to beef.  Pounds and Pounds of Sugar is hidden 99.9% of all Jerky you find in the marketplace today.  Including Jerky labeled as “All Natural”.  Jerky manufacturers have it down to a science and are getting over 50-60% yield rates just by adding loads of Sugar to their marinades.  It’s a win-win.  Sugar is highly addictive and temporarily satisfies our sweet tooth and it boosts the yield rates for making jerky.

Artisan Jerky makers who make jerky in small batches and put quality above all else buy meat from farmers who raise cattle naturally without the use of hormones and that are free to graze in grass pastures.  True Artisans make Jerky the way it was intended to be made – like our ancestors a couple of generations ago did.  They are passionate about their craft.  They don’t add cheap ingredients to their marinades (loads of sugar and other fillersd) and thus have lower yield rates.  They certainly don’t have the resources of Jack Links (the market leader with over 50% market share in the Jerky business) with big factory farms and the ability to purchase cheap ingredients in larger quantities (making them even cheaper).

Our goal is to make jerky healthy again and some of our colleagues in the jerky business share this sentiment.  We encourage the consumer to look first at the ingredients on the bag.  If sugar is one of the first 3 ingredients, reconsider your purchase.  If there is an ingredient you can’t pronounce, don’t buy it.  If the beef is not Grass-Fed, definitely reconsider the purchase.  If it’s not Grass-Fed, it most likely came from a factory farm or somewhere the cattle are fed a diet of GMO corn and other items unnatural to their diet.  Jerky is the perfect high protein, on-the-go snack when it’s made the right way.

Grass-Fed beef is isn’t “cheap”.  Turning it into a high protein, healthy, on-the-go snack isn’t cheap either.  Although we applaud the innovation of our large competitors, we strive to reverse the perception they have created of a great snack food.  We ask you the consumer to continue to demand higher standards when it comes to the food options available for purchase.  Don’t support businesses with poor agricultural practices and those that own factory farms and use toxic ingredients in their marinades.  Your next trail deserves quality food – that includes your snack food too.

We couldn’t think of a better place to begin this trek (outside of our own community) than the AMAZING Rocky Mountains in Colorado.  From the get-go, we knew this trip was going to be awesome because the plane we boarded had a Buffalo painted on the wing (we may never fly another airlines again).  As I write this, I’m at 9600 feet above sea level in the very cool town of Breckenridge looking up at Breckenridge Mountain. Yeah, this doesn’t suck.  We kept our first day here pretty low key.  We were still adjusting to the thin air in the high altitudes (we live in Charleston, SC – at/below sea level) so we decided not to get too crazy.  We explored the town, met some locals, and found a cool, easy-going hiking path right around the corner from our place. There are literally hiking paths EVERYWHERE here and we have plans to take advantage of as many as possible.

Outside of the hike, we did try some local jerky from the local artisan selling it for $8 for a 2 oz pack.  A little pricey but it tasted great and we could tell it was made with a love for the craft. We make jerky for a living so we totally understand the costs involved and didn’t question the pricing and we’re always up for supporting the local small business.  We gave them big props for the cool cart!

We left our mark in town by adding a new sticker to the recycled snowboard park bench.  The bench was awesome and had some pretty cool stickers on it so we couldn’t pass up on the opportunity.  Day 1 in Breck proved this place is all that it’s cracked up to be.  Who couldn’t get inspired and feel more connected to nature when surrounded by the majestic Rocky Mountains?  We’ll continue to chronicle our trip here and the many more to come.  Day 1 – a success!