A Look Back At 2020

This year that has been difficult for so many people. It has been a year of intense change for us as a company and for us personally. This year we sold our house in South Carolina after living there for 3 1/2 years. It was a nice transition house after getting out of the Army but we were ready to go. We sold everything we owned and moved to Texas to set down the new roots for GI Jerky. 

After 24 hours and 1200 miles we made it back to Texas, settling in the small town of Mineral Wells. One of the major struggles we faced was finding a new production facility to produce our jerky. Our search started in June and we didn't have our first new batch of jerky until the first week on November. Trying to run a business that was low on inventory for several months was difficult but we are so thankful for our customers that stuck with us through that transitional period. As of the first week of November, we were back up and running and had full inventory. We took this time to hit the ground running leading up to the holidays and pushed hard both in our local market places and our online store. 

One of the most exciting things for us was we were able to get into The Market at 76076. This amazing boutique is in the middle of downtown Mineral Wells and sees travelers from all over the United States. If you are ever in the Mineral Wells area, stopping at the Market is a must. There are so many great things happening in this community and we can not wait to see what the coming year holds.

We also were blessed to begin offering GI Jerky at T&A Adventure Outfitters in Glen Rose, Texas. This shop is awesome! They offer so many great things for the outdoorsy person. They have everything from knives to kayaks, coolers to canoes, socks to stand up paddle boards. Another awesome thing they offer are outdoor adventures. They offer everything from kayak trips to goat yoga. You can also rent camping gear or RV's from them to go explore the great state of Texas. 

From our formation, our goal was always to be able to give back to the military and Veteran community. Starting out we weren't able to do much. However, this year we partnered with Soldiers' Angels to give jerky to deployed service members deployed around the world. We started a campaign called Give GI Jerky that allows people to donate bags of jerky to specific service members or to sponsored service members chosen through Soldiers' Angels. We plan to continue this relationship with Soldiers' Angels next year and to get more jerky into the hands of deployed service members.

We have some awesome things planned for 2021! We are going to be launching a beef jerky subscription box that will automatically send you jerky every month or as often as you like. You will also be able to give the subscription as a gift to friends or family. We currently offer five unique flavors of jerky. We are going to be offering a sixth flavor this year. It will be an all new super spicy beef jerky. We are working on a sweet hot jerky that will also be out in the coming year. As always, we will continue to give away free beef jerky on Facebook and you can continue to order jerky online and have it shipped anywhere in the world. Make sure you follow us on Facebook so you don't miss out on those giveaways!

We are so excited to see what this new year is going to hold for us. There is no doubt that 2020 has been a year unlike anything we have encountered before. We are beyond thankful for every one of our customers over this past year. We thank you for supporting Veteran owned small businesses, sharing us with your friends and family, and for the kind words we have received. One of our core beliefs is that a business should exist to give back and to bless others. We try to be more than simply a jerky company, anyone can do that. We want to be a company that gives generously and helps others. We hope that we have been able to bless you this year and we hope that we can continue that into 2021. 

 

-Team GI Jerky