It all started in October 2014. I (Traci) was a Legal Secretary for an Estate Planning attorney, and just was not happy. My husband, Joe, had been experimenting with making beef jerky in our kitchen, he had been making jerky at this point for years, but wanted some new flavors. So he set out to make a couple new flavors. He would give it away for a small donation at our local watering hole, so he could make more and share with our friends.
It got pretty popular, and people would say "this is great beef jerky, you should sell it!" I came home one day and it had been a bad day. Joe said why don't we try to sell our beef jerky, and that is how it was born. It took sometime to come up with a catchy name and logo, but I think we did a good job.
Our official launch date was in March 2015, and it has taken time to get our name out there. Coming from an administrative background, selling was not my strong suit, and Joe was running his contracting business, so this was all on me! Now, I am not shy by any means, but going out there to sell a product was kind of tough. Most store owners wouldn't even give me the time of day. And if they did, some would only keep my product for just a couple of months and say it wasn't selling. I just thought, well it's excellent jerky, it will sell. Well how many people really like a change? Not many, especially if they have their go to beef jerky.
I went in search of a way to promote our business online. I found a couple beef jerky review sites and sent in our jerky. We started out with 2 flavors; Sweet 'N Spicy and Peppered. We soon introduced 2 more flavors; Regular Joe and Joemama's Hot. We got some good feedback on our product. By year 2, we had introduced 2 more flavors; Mary Joe and Wicked Hot. We had a line of 6 flavors, which is a good number to have. We got great reviews and people started visiting our site and buying jerky. I also do tastings in our local grocery stores and events throughout the year.
Today, we are doing pretty good and the name is getting out there more and more, thanks to social media! I will write periodically about our experiences. If you are reading this blog and want to order some of our beef jerky, just use this one time discount code JanuaryBlog2018 to get free shipping on any order over $20.
Thanks for your support!
My wife got me a jerky of the month club for my birthday. So far they’ve been pretty good but nothing so excellent I wanted to buy it. Until Mary Joe came along! OMG this stuff is fantastic and I am pretty particular about what fantastic taste like in jerky. So here I find myself on the website to buy the biggest package they have probably two and sadly they are out of stock. However not very shocking given how it fantastic it is. Waiting for it to come back in stock. I hope you guys do well and I’m going to try some other flavors.
My brother lives in Redding Ca. He sent me a package of the Mary Joe and we were blown away! 5 star jerky! My brother and I are both meat smokers and do our own, but the Mary Joe is unbelievable! I’m going to order online from the Redding store.
What stores do you sell in? Curious to try 🤗