[Cover Story] Jack Link's Beef Jerky

If you were to print a brand for me and put it on my forehead, it would have to say ‘Safety.’"

Though Founder Jack Link doesn’t actually have a Safety tattoo printed on his forehead, caricatures of his head – and body – are printed on posters throughout the Jack Link’s Beef Jerky processing plant in Minong, Wis., with various ‘Safety Jack’ slogans reminding plant workers that safety is, indeed, as Link says, "the backbone of our culture" and the backbone of the quality of its beef jerky products.

"Producing a quality product is number one. We are able to produce quality products because our overriding focus is on food safety and equipment safety. Quality products, food safety and equipment safety all go hand in hand," says Link, who is also chairman and CEO of the company. "The overall cleanliness of the facility, the safety at work, the cleanliness of the food...these are all everyone’s job...every day."

Link’s focus on safety is conferred to new employees from their first day on the job – and was obvious on this tour of the plant and visit with the Jack Link’s executive management team. One can’t possibly miss the more than 35 "Safety Jack" posters displayed throughout the plant, such as the always-smiling Safety Jack holding a "Use Caution" sign in one hand and gears in the other with the slogan "Beware of moving parts when operating machinery" or Safety Jack pointing toward a mirror saying "Meet the person responsible for your safety." And many of his key sayings have become basic plant slogans. "Do you know what the most important ingredients here are?" one executive manager says that Link asks new employees. "Beef? Spices? Marinades?" a new employee may query. To which Link replies simply, "Soap and water." (A nodding of heads from the executives accompanied by laughter and "He’s said that more than once!" confirmed the familiarity of the statement.)

In fact, no matter what aspect of the company is being discussed, food safety crops into the conversation. One of Jack Link’s newer products is its softer Steak Nuggets. The company began producing the nuggets, "to satisfy the more tender biters of America," Link says, adding without pause, "As with all of our new products, we developed this product line with both food safety and quality as our primary focus."

This emphasis is reflected throughout the plant operations as well, from the "more-than-operating-room" clean of the facility prior to daily start-up, to the equipment which was designed for sanitation, the proudly worn "Safety Committee" caps on the heads of departmental representatives, and the multiple quality tests through which each cook of jerky is run.

SAFETY COMES FIRST. Jack Link’s has created a plant culture that promotes safety at all levels of the organization. Some examples include:

 Hospital-clean. "There’s no way you’re going to make a great quality product without having a great quality clean facility," says Vice President of Operations Terry Smith. "If you go in our rooms and you go in an operating room in a hospital, our room will be cleaner in the morning before start-up."

Jack Link’s is ISO 2002 and HACCP approved and has on-site USDA inspectors. Through such programs, Link says, consumers can be assured that they are receiving the best value and the safest, highest quality product. "The safety steps we take every day ultimately trickle down to our final product. Our consumers can rest assured that they are receiving a good quality and safe snack item."

 The End Product. "Our motto is that there is no questionable product for sale. When in doubt, throw it out," says Director of Quality Assurance Roger Moore. "There’s not a piece of meat that goes into a package that doesn’t get inspected," adds Minong Plant Manager Allen Dunlavy. Confirming his statement that every person is an inspector, a large bin is set next to each end-packaging line into which unacceptable packaged product is placed for rework or discard, depending on the circumstances.

 People Power. The human eye is a critical component of Jack Link’s safety, with the plant employing more people than populate the 521-resident city of Minong. "We automate where we can to make our product as efficiently as possible," Dunlavy says, "but we’ll never automate at the risk of sacrificing quality."

"Our sanitation people are our number one line of defense against sanitation issues," adds Moore. The results of the daily environmental tests are shared with the sanitation crew, and their objective, he says, is zero. "We do an excellent job of maintaining the facility."

 Safety Committee and Initiatives. The Safety Jack program is not just posters and slogans, but is an active, team-based, incentive-driven program which has dramatically increased safety and reduced accidents since its inception three years ago. Each departmental team has a representative on the Jack Link’s Safety Committee and incentives are rewarded by quarterly team achievement, and visible records of which are posted in each departmental area. In addition, the program includes regular "Safety Toolbox Talks" by program coordinator Rebeca Dunlavy; rewards for safety suggestions of the month; periodic Safety Committee-sponsored luncheons and popcorn breaks; and full management support and involvement.

The program’s success is due, in part, to its high visibility, Dunlavy says. The postings, committee initiatives, and incentives all provide daily reminders to help keep the importance of safety top of mind for all workers. "Safety is something that’s got to be visible. If it’s not visible, it’s not successful."

 Equipped for Sanitation. "Specific equipment is not always available when we begin a new product line," Moore says. Because of this, Jack Link’s designs much of its own equipment and has local companies build it. This not only enables them to design the equipment exactly to specification but allows them to design it for sanitation and cleanliness. "One of the reasons for designing our own equipment is the ease of cleaning," Moore says. "No nooks or crannies for product to get into which reduces the chance for microbe build up to ever happen." In fact, the equipment goes through three design stages before reaching its final build plans:

 practical – design for the job for which it is intended

 cleanliness and sanitation – eli- mination of nooks and crannies

 safety – ergonomic design for employee health and safety.

 Multiple Micro Testing. The corporation has an extensive micro lab which runs thousands of tests every day. "Over the years, we have taken great pride in the safety results our teams have been able to achieve and maintain, as proven through our testing. Every cook goes through a complete battery of tests, is packaged, and then retested," Smith says.

 The Secret Smoker. While Link and his management team are very open about their quality and safety efforts, the company does have its proprietary secrets, with the secret to its products’ unique qualities and flavors a mystery that even few workers are privy too. "I’ve never even been in the smoker," says one employee. And she could have been speaking for the vast majority of workers, as only those whose job descriptions include smoker duties have ever seen the inside of the room. It is a prestige to which employees strive; one reserved for the dedicated, often the most long-term workers – some of whom have been with Jack Link’s for more than 30 years and all of whom have signed non-disclosure statements; with proprietary workings which, like the properties of Willy Wonka’s double secret Everlasting Gobstopper, are never discussed outside the smoker walls.

AWARD-WINNING SUPPLIER. "Work hard. Work safe. Stay Clean." Becoming an award-winning supplier, even for such discriminating companies as Wal-Mart, is simply a matter of doing what’s right, Link says. And it must work, as Jack Link’s has been twice recognized by Wal-Mart as a Supplier of the Year.

"We’re committed to being a leader in our category," adds Bret Ocholik, vice president of marketing. "Wal-Mart will typically partner with the leader in a category; and with that comes a lot of demands." Demands in both product quality and safety, as well as areas such as price points and logistics, he explains. But the demands, when combined with Jack Link’s own corporate commitment to being the leader in its field, have actually been beneficial to the company’s continued improvement, Ocholik says. "Wal-Mart has been a good partner to help us improve in so many ways for our other customers as well."

One of the areas of improvement driven by its relationship with Wal-Mart is its RFID system for which Jack Link’s participated in a pilot program and is continuing to roll out throughout its operations. With RFID, scanners detect product coming in the door and moving throughout the system. "It was a very technologically advanced way for them to track goods in their system and in their supply chain," explains Karl Paepke, Jack Link’s vice president of supply chain. But, in order for Wal-Mart to use this technology, they need to receive goods that are tagged, thus implementing slow roll-out of their technology throughout its suppliers.

In working with the program, Paepke says, the processor realized that it needed to build up some of its infrastructure to be able to handle the technology and to make it beneficial for Jack Link’s as well as for Wal-Mart. "Unless you can use that data, use that information internally to benefit you, it’s just an added cost," he says, adding that they have learned a great deal through the implementation including ways it can make the company better, and Jack Link’s plans to continue building the system internally. "We hope to leverage this technology for internal efficiencies independently of any partner mandates."

Jack Link’s also sees the awards as a true distinction, and as a reflection of its entire process. "I think it’s a true reflector, not just of one area of our business, it’s a reflection of everything," Paepke says. "It’s really quite an award when you think about who we’re competing with in that same space, in that same category or Wal-Mart department."

USDA PARTNERSHIP. Jack Link’s does not view USDA as simply an enforcement agency or watchdog. Rather, Ocholik says, "We look at the USDA as a partner to make our company better; to make our product safer for our consumers, instead of just being a watchdog out there and getting by with the bare minimums."

And, in fact, Jack Link’s not only carries ISO 2002 and HACCP approval status, but company personnel wrote the HACCP program for meat snacks. "When we started in the jerky business it was an unknown business to most of the equipment manufacturers – as well as the industry, so we wrote the HACCP program and we designed a lot of the equipment that manufacturers are using today," Link says.

FOUNDATION FOR GROWTH. With product sold in more than 40 countries, Jack Link’s has come a long way from its roots in the family hunting grounds of Northern Wisconsin. Yet it is just those roots and the foundation built on them focusing on product quality and consumer wants that has enabled that growth and is taking Jack Link’s to the next level.

"The company grew based upon high-quality meat snacks at a good price with good distribution," Ocholik says. Distribution which has recently been enhanced by an aggressive sales team which has taken meat snacks into new areas and to new consumers. Five to ten years ago, you could only find jerky at places such as gas stations and convenience stores; today you can find them at the check-out counter in grocery, home improvement, sporting goods, and even craft stores – due, primarily to Jack Link’s investment in a sales force whose mission was to take the meat snacks "anywhere that a snack can be sold," Ocholik says. "The momentum and growth has been phenomenal over the past five years."

But it is the quality of the product that sets the foundation for the sales explosion, and it is these same qualities which will enable any small company to grow, Ocholik says. "Can you build the foundation – have a quality product and the structure in place to make that product consistently? Then can you make it available to the consumer?" he advises companies to ask themselves. "Once you have that model in place, it’s time to spend the dollars to scream to the world about it. We’re in that phase now."

In fact, Jack Link’s "scream" has been just that, with its "Feed Your Wild Side" campaign, featuring Sasquatch (see Feeding Your Wild Side), having picked up a life of its own with today’s Internet generation. The campaign has increased consumer attention on both Jack Link’s jerky and the meat-snack category in general. And while measurement is important, it is not the critical component.

"We try not to measure where we’ve been, we try to measure where we’re going," Link adds. And just where are they going? Jack Link’s goals are to not only drive its own growth but to drive the growth of the meat snack category as a whole. The 30 percent market penetration of the category, he says, means that "70 percent of households out there are not yet eating meat snacks."

SMALL = FLEXIBLE. Though Jack Link’s is ranked at the top of its category in sales, has more than 1,000 employees, and sells its meat snacks in more than 40 countries world wide, when compared with many of its competitors, for which meat snacks is just one line of many, Jack Link’s is a small business. But that, they say, is actually an advantage for them.

Being small gives the company flexibility that some of the bigger players don’t have, it also means that they have to work harder and better to continue their growth. "We’re always trying to be proactive in meeting the consumers’ needs and being right on the cutting edge," Ocholik says, explaining that this is an area in which they can often excel over the larger corporations for whom it is not as easy to quickly "turn their ship" to meet ever-changing consumer demand.

"We are meat snacks," he adds. "We have to be the best at it, so we will move quicker than our competition on any new initiative." This flexibility and desire to be the best is something that must extend to every employee in the plant, and for which the company actively recruits. "We look for people who will fit the culture, who are going to embrace it with the same level of passion that the owners have," Ocholik says. "It’s a culture of working hard, doing things on the fly, and being better and faster than the next guy."

It is just this desire to work hard and be the best, this absolute "passion for meat snacks" that Ocholik believes has driven Jack Link’s success. "We’re a family-owned company that only makes meat snacks and we’re up against large Fortune 500 companies that do a lot of different things. If you speak to any employee with the company – they know what we’re focused on; they understand the business, they understand their role in the business.

"I think it’s the passion that we have as a company, our focus on the meat snack category exclusively, and our underlying foundation of quality, cleanliness and safety that have driven and will continue to drive our growth," says Link.

Indeed Jack Link’s Beef Jerky has received a number of recognitions and awards, and while its officers appreciate these commendations, the real judge of a product, they say, is its consumer. "At the end of the day, we judge it by what consumers are saying and by the sales of the products." QA

The author is a contributing editor to QA magazine.

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A Family Tradition

In the 1880s Jack Link’s great grandfather came to America from the "Old World" to settle in the northern Wisconsin wilderness; bringing with him his family sausage recipes. Even at that time, the Link family was known for its sausages and smoked meats, and the meat tradition continued into the next generation’s general store and butcher shop, the following son’s cattle business, and finally to Jack Link himself, who even as a small boy followed his dad everywhere learning about cattle and the meat business, then grew up to create a business of his own supplying beef to Northern Wisconsin stores and restaurants. Then it happened.

"We were out hunting one day and we tried some beef jerky. We thought we could probably make that in our plant – and make it better," says Jack Link, founder of Jack Link’s Beef Jerky. So they did, and so it was. Then Link said, "It tastes so good, we could probably sell it." And so they did, and so it sold.

The jerky was made from the family’s Old World recipes, and working with his sons, Link perfected the recipes; then began making larger and larger batches to fulfill the requests of friends, neighbors, then small stores across northern Wisconsin. From its first product, Jack Link’s Beef Steaks, the family business secured a reputation for quality, and with continued requests for Link’s jerky and a continuing growth in consumer demand for convenient, high-quality snack foods, the Link family had secured its niche and Jack Link’s Beef Jerky was born.

Today the 31-year-old company is run by:

 John E. (Jack) Link – CEO and Chairman of the Board, Jack founded the company in 1985, previous to which he was president and CEO of Link Industries for seven years and vice president and part owner of Link Brothers Inc. for the 18 years prior to that. Jack is active in the local community and is an avid hunter and sportsman.

 Troy Link – President of Link Snacks Inc. Having participated in the family business since his youth, Troy has worked nearly every position in the company and today provides its day-to-day leadership. Troy follows in his father’s footsteps, not only holding the reins for the next generation of the Link’s business tradition, but also in his community and sportsman involvement.

It operates four manufacturing plants in the U.S. and one in New Zealand; it produces more than 100 different meat snack products; and its meat snacks can be found in more than 40 countries. Jack Link’s has been cited as the top company in the meat snack industry and has continually maintained double digit growth, tripling or even quadrupling the category growth.

The secret to the success of Jack Link’s Beef Jerky and advice to other small food companies wanting to grow? "Understand what you can be world class at," says Vice President of Marketing Bret Ocholik. "Invest in that. Focus on it. Be aggressive."

"And work hard," Link adds.

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Feeding Your Wildside

"Do you believe in Sasquatch?"

At last count there were 12,687 people who not only believe in Sasquatch, but call him their friend. With this number increasing by more than 1,000 in a single week, Sasquatch should probably rethink his MySpace blurb: "Only friend Owl."

Jack Link’s Messin’ With Sasquatch marketing campaign has become a cyber craze as Internet enthusiasts upload Sasquatch videos to YouTube; download photos; link to messinwithsasquatch.com; respond to his MySpace; blog on the campaign; and, in general, contribute to the almost 550 search results of Sasquatch "Jack Link’s." Ocholik says the company knew it had a strong campaign, but it has been surprised by the Internet’s "viral pass-around nature," through which people are identifying Sasquatch with Jack Link’s - and meat snacks. "It’s all about bringing attention, getting people to talk about the category," he says. "And that’s a big part of driving future growth not just for Jack Link’s the company, but for the category as a whole."

They are, Link says, "feeding their wild side."