Behind the Rough Cut Beef Jerky
Rough cut beef jerky is the international branch of Finnish dried meat company Kuivalihakundi. Our mission is to bring nordic meat experiences to all meat lovers around the world.
It all started when I became disappointed with some shitty ass jerky from our local stores! I was with my dudes in Lapland on a fishing trip and the day was absolute shit!! The beer was warm as piss, the rain was pouring and our legs were exhausted from the hike in. The fish weren’t biting so it was a quite miserable evening.
As the evening came my friends and I were chilling on the bank of the river and we began to devour the bags of jerky we had purchased and holy shit, we were so disappointed in the quality of the product. It was at that moment I realized I could make a better product and I had to do something about it, so on my way home I went to buy a dehydrator and began to concoct my marinades. I will become the master of dried meats!
Well, nobody is a blacksmith from birth so it was all trial and error, my first batch was absolutely off par and way too salty but, I ate it all anyway and learned a lesson along the way. I said to myself “Let my wife hear me in all of my glory as I marinade the kitchen as much as I marinade the meat!” Despite all of the setbacks I was determined to make the best jerky in the world, failure is not an option!
For a few years I honed in on my recipes and I brought the jerky to my friends on every poker night we had, they were so ecstatic to taste it every time! My friends gave me the inspiration to continue making the jerky I was doing. In my previous job, I was a truck driver and jerky was a staple snack for me while I was on the road. So as I started my jerky business I realized I was unfamiliar with this field of work and began to worry about all of the food regulations but, with hard work and determination, I got shit done. I was making and selling my jerky straight from my home kitchen as an entrepreneur and as time went by I realized I needed much more space for my production, and so I began my business. My wife was extremely happy I was no longer making a huge mess in our kitchen.
I had been checking one industrial glass transport trailer for a good while that was in my employer’s yard and thinking if it could be used to build a small production facility. Without wasting any time, I called my friends to help me in exchange for beer! Together we built the walls of my first production place in the sleet and rain and later with better weather, we finished the space inside. My family and friends have been a huge help and have supported me since the beginning. The biggest orders were made by friends when word got around that I produce dried meat as a hobby!
And that was when we got the first official approval in autumn of 2015. My massive meat factory was a whopping 20 square meters and the inspector who made the final approval was laughing that this is clearly the smallest industrial approval that they have ever made. And his remark about this being my hobby was clearly amusing him, but we were fucking working our asses off to make this happen. Everyone does it in their own style for god’s sake!
After the first production trailer, we ran out of space. I quickly realized we needed to grow our production much larger and so we began sprinting to become a pioneer of Finnish beef jerky! That was when I started renting a much bigger facility to grow my business exponentially and we are still growing. To be continued…