Meat Snacks Key Terms

Satisfy your customers' taste for meat snacks with these key terms

With the growing popularity of reduced-carbohydrate eating plans like the Atkins Diet, meat snacks sales are experiencing a huge upturn. Dried and preserved meats that require no refrigeration have always been a favorite of hunters, hikers, campers and others outdoors aficionados, but now these snacks have crossed over into the mainstream audience looking for convenient, high-protein, low-prep snacks. Whether your customers are in search of lunch sack or backpack fillers, emergency food supplies or gourmet taste treats, here are the meat snacks key terms you'll need to know to serve up what they're hungry for.

 

Jerky

Jerky, from the Inca word ch'arki, meaning dried meat, is the most popular meat snack. Jerky is available in strips, shreds, nuggets or slabs. It is most commonly made from dried or cured beef, though turkey is growing in popularity as are other more exotic meats such as venison, ostrich, buffalo and alligator. Jerky is available in a wide range of flavors and seasonings. In addition to widely available commercial jerky brands, there are products from artesanal producers that provide small batches to suit niche tastes.
Try: Read about the history of jerky as a meat snack at Jerky.com.

Meat sticks

Second in popularity to jerky as a meat snack are meat sticks, which can be dry sausages like salami or summer sausage, or dried meat processed in tube-like forms. Some manufacturers package meat sticks with complementary cheese snack sticks or with crackers. Slim Jim, from ConAgra Foods, is the most popular brand of meat stick snack, and consumers sometimes use the brand name as a generic term for all meat sticks.
Try: Read the history of the Slim Jim at the ConAgra site.

Pork rinds

Though sometimes stocked in the chips aisle, pork rinds are technically a meat snack. These crispy, puffed snacks are made by deep-frying bits of the fatty lining of a pig's skin. Related meat snacks include cracklins, which are crumbled pork rinds, and pork fat back, which is strips of pork fat with skin attached, either preserved as jerky or fried as crunchy strips.
Try: See a variety of pork meat snacks at Carolina Country Snacks.

Natural

Most meat snack producers use chemical preservatives such as sodium nitrite or sodium nitrate to help preserve the meat, as well as adding flavor enhancers such as MSG (monosodium glutamate), fillers such as hydrolized soy protein and other additives. There are no set standards for natural meat snacks, but products advertised as "natural" usually contain little or no chemical preservatives, relying on salt or air-drying alone, as well as no MSG or other additives. In addition, some producers market their natural meat snacks as having been made from organically raised, hormone-free meats.
Try: Read Golden Valley Natural's description of its natural meat snacks.

FSIS

FSIS, the U.S. Government's Food Safety and Inspection Service, is responsible for the oversight of safe meat snacks production.
Try: Read the FSIS guidelines for jerky at the Food Safety and Inspection Service website.

Shelf-stable

The majority of meat snacks are advertised as self-stable, or needing no refrigeration. Shelf stability is provided in a number of ways, including the drying and preserving process, vacuum sealing in packages and the inclusion of oxygen absorber packets in resealable bags. Shelf stability is compromised once the packaging is opened and the contents are exposed to air or heat, and most manufacturers list a sell-by date to assure best quality. Cool storage and freezing can extend the shelf life of meat snacks.
Try: Read about one manufacturer's methods to make meat snacks shelf-stable at Joe's Beef Jerky.

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