The meat snack, that humble gas-station staple of road trips and adolescent lunch boxes, is having what the marketing world likes to call a moment.
Whether this moment will prove more durable than the Atkins craze or the brief cultural fascination with acai bowls remains to be seen, but for now the category is drawing attention from legacy brands, upstart competitors, and — in at least one case — the Walt Disney Company, which recently reached out to Archer, a grass-fed beef jerky maker, about a partnership involving Grogu, the diminutive green creature from the "Star Wars" television franchise.
"As we've started to bring grass-fed beef and really premium products, it really has created a sea change within the category," said Andrew Thomas, senior vice president of marketing at Archer, adding that consumers "have rediscovered meat snacks and said, 'Wait a minute, this isn't my father's meat-snacks category.'"
(One suspects that father's meat-snacks category did perfectly well without the endorsement of fictional aliens, but times change.)
The category's growth has been fed — if one may use that word — by a confluence of dietary trends. Holly LaVallie, senior vice president of marketing at Jack Link's Protein Snacks, cited the proliferation of high-protein diets, from keto to the more esoteric carnivore regimen, as well as the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which apparently correlate with increased jerky purchases.
Mr. Thomas said Archer was aware of the GLP-1 connection but had chosen not to mention it in marketing materials. "You don't know when people are going to stop talking about it," he said, displaying the caution of a marketer who has watched trends come and go.
Slim Jim, meanwhile, has spent more than a decade cultivating an online community that trades in the kind of self-aware humor that performs well on social platforms. Matthew Brown, the brand's director, said the goal was "making sure Slim Jim is top of mind for folks, even if they are not actively seeking meat snacks."
Whether they are seeking meat snacks or not, Americans may soon have little choice but to encounter them. As Mr. Thomas noted, the category remains "really under-penetrated versus other snacking categories," adding that many consumers do not even know which aisle to find them in.
That, at least, is a problem that marketing can solve.
Original story published in Marketing Brew: "How meat-snack marketers are meeting the moment"