Ep 586: Ditch Beef Jerky, Upgrade Your Protein Snack With Joburg Meats

Looking for a high-protein snack that isn’t rock-hard jerky that destroys your teeth? Same. After literally chipping my tooth on beef jerky, I was DONE until I discovered Joburg Meats and their tender, flavorful biltong steak slices.

In this episode of the Health Fix Podcast, I sit down with Jon Engelson and Joe from Joburg Meats to explore what makes their South African–inspired steak slices a healthier, cleaner, and more delicious upgrade from traditional jerky.

Resources From The Show:

• Joburg Meats – get 20% off with “healthfix20” 

Our Partners

Podcast Transcript

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Health Fix Podcast and Guests
02:53 The Story Behind Jogger Meets and Biltong
06:00 Understanding Steak Slices vs. Jerky
08:33 The Drying Process of Steak Slices
11:31 Sourcing and Quality of Meat
14:25 Kosher Considerations in Meat Processing
24:40 Corporate Influence on Food Quality
27:34 The Shift Towards Healthier Eating
30:19 The Importance of Ingredient Transparency
33:22 Innovative Flavors and Product Development
38:17 Understanding Kosher Practices
47:35 The Energy of Food and Its Impact

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Jannine Krause (00:01.144)
John Engelson, welcome to the Health Fix Podcast.

jon (00:04.332)
Thank you, great to be here.

Jannine Krause (00:06.584)
Well, I’m excited because when you guys reached out to me and said, hey, do you want to try our product and talked about the meat slices and I’m saying meat slices and it’s steak slices and we’re gonna get into that guys as to what that’s all about. And really talking about snacks that are coming with a high quality protein but also with a purpose and also being

Grass-fed things of that nature things that we need to be thinking about when it comes to our food and what we are consuming So how did how did Jogger meets and and if I’m saying it wrong, that’s another thing. You to help me out here how did you guys find each other? How did you meet? How did this all come together?

jon (00:51.653)
Okay, so I’ve been had years and years of experience in the food industry.

Jannine Krause (01:00.59)
And now we have a film. There he is. Hello.

jon (01:00.625)
There’s Joe.

Joe (01:01.637)
Yeah. Yeah. I finally was able to get it to work.

Jannine Krause (01:06.734)
Good deal, good deal. We’re all here now. We’re all here now.

jon (01:10.671)
Okay, great. He’s one of the founders and he adds a lot of wisdom and some flavor to our podcast together, which you may see. So this will be fun.

Joe (01:16.325)
No, I’m Mr. Crazy.

Jannine Krause (01:27.832)
Fair enough, fair enough. So now that I have both of you, of course, I kind of want to know the story of like how you two met. How did you decide that we have got to share something from South Africa in the US and bring it to the US market to kind of maybe give a better option to beef jerky? Because as I was telling John, when we came to the podcast to get started, I ended up chipping a tooth while eating beef jerky. And so…

Joe (01:32.987)
Bye.

Jannine Krause (01:57.698)
coming to something that’s a little bit softer and a little bit easier to chew with the steak slices, now I’m like, okay, we’ve got a different option for my teeth as I get older. So how did you two meet?

Joe (01:58.855)
Thanks

Joe (02:13.679)
John, how did I meet you? I was walking in a dark alley and I bumped into this tall guy. And I go, who is this?

jon (02:15.768)
We met. We actually live in the same community and we we met at the same synagogue. So it was that’s how we we originally met and we had an appeal right away to each other. He’s extremely eccentric, probably.

Jannine Krause (02:27.21)
huh.

Jannine Krause (02:31.618)
Gotch.

jon (02:45.259)
And if I can keep his attention for more than three seconds, that’s like a miracle. But usually I can, I have a way with it. But he’s a really, really sensitive and deep soul. And we became very good friends and we had these sort of parallel lives in the sense of what we were doing in business. He comes from a tech background and I actually come from, like I said, was saying before, food background.

Joe (02:56.474)
Don’t push it.

jon (03:14.735)
But I didn’t really know he was into this food project at all. And then one day we started talking and I said, you know, we should sit down because I have a lot of experience in this. I founded a company in the 90s called You Are What You Eat. And we were one of the pioneers of putting health and nutrition products in schools and the mass market. And I had a lot of experience of bringing products into

both in the retail world and in the direct world. So we ended up having a meeting and that was almost two years ago. I can’t believe that. How fast does that go? And we’ve been together and building this wonderful project ever since.

Joe (03:52.071)
Yeah, a little too quick.

Jannine Krause (03:59.97)
Gotcha, gotcha. And so two guys, same community. Where does South Africa come in and how does Biltong and now we’re calling them steak slices here in the US so folks get a better understanding of what’s going on. How did you guys bring this into your conversation?

Joe (04:17.157)
There is another partner that is South Africa.

Jannine Krause (04:24.155)
okay. Okay.

Joe (04:25.473)
And that’s where the South African Biltong originally comes from, the original recipes. as being here in America, which was part of the original vision, part of the original vision was really started by just something delicious. Delicious that’s not available in Kosher.

Jannine Krause (04:50.474)
Gotcha.

Joe (04:50.891)
And that’s really where the vision just came from, was like, let’s make something delicious that’s available for the kosher market as well. So we took this product, which was absolutely, I remember tasting and going, wow, this is insane. I have never tasted anything like this. And building from there.

jon (04:52.868)
you

jon (05:09.732)
and

Joe (05:12.409)
And then John came along and kind of all of a sudden we started to realize that it’s not just about delicious, it’s about healthy and clean. And by definition, our product was clean. There was zero, zero, zero junk in there. So all of a sudden we just change and go like, wow, this is, this is, okay, this is not just about delicious, this is about a whole nother.

jon (05:39.596)
Okay.

Joe (05:39.809)
Avenue of people that we’re gonna make happy here So we kind of changed the whole vision instead of focusing on delicious focused on healthy, which was by default delicious

Jannine Krause (05:51.374)
which is always a score, which is always a score. And of course, John sent me over some samples and I’ve consumed all of these in probably about 35 seconds, if we’re being real. But the black truffle, I love anything truffle.

jon (06:03.409)
Good. Okay.

Jannine Krause (06:07.95)
It’s amazing and it’s an amazing flavor. And I think a lot of people are looking at beef jerky and going, oh, well, we have that added sugar a lot of times. We have soy sauce in there and that’s in there. And then we have the concept of the cooking and it gets really dry over a course of time. And of course, hence why the tooth ended up getting chipped. So would you explain to us a little bit about the process of the biltongue and how you guys came up with the different flavors that you are?

jon (06:27.619)
you

Jannine Krause (06:37.904)
that you chose? these that like traditional to South Africa or are these things you kind of just thought sounded good and worked out?

Joe (06:46.504)
That’s a very good, very good question. I’ll address this one. We’ll go, John, you’ll address the, when we go more into healthy side. Interesting, the jerky question versus the steak slices question. Think of it as a, I think this is good. I’m trying to give it a good example as, know, anybody, any of your audience watching this is gonna be like,

jon (06:56.365)
Sure.

Joe (07:16.391)
Yeah, I know exactly. One second.

Joe (07:25.553)
Who’s clicking over there?

Jannine Krause (07:27.052)
Yeah, I can hear some typing going on in the background.

Joe (07:29.51)
Yeah.

Joe (07:34.617)
Okay, thank you.

Jannine Krause (07:36.99)
Yeah. Yeah, let’s go back to the difference between built-tongue and… Yeah.

Joe (07:41.903)
Yes, so built on the jerky. So thinking of the right question, the right answer to actually address it and give a good, a fair understanding of what that is.

So let’s think of it this way. You’re a cook, chef in your kitchen, right? You could buy good meat, you could buy bad meat, but it’s all how you cook it, right? So now you’ve made meat where, whether your kids or husband or anybody tasting, go like, this is really a little bit inedible. It’s a little bit too overdone. It’s a little too…

It’s not what you expect like when you have like a medium or medium well steak, which is like that has that tenderness to it, which is really what you’re expecting. So every time you eat a piece of meat, you want to be able to have that easy chew like a medium medium, medium well or medium rare, depending on your liking. But definitely not something you need to chew for 60 seconds to get it down.

where your jaws are hurting you by the time you’re done. That’s kind of the difference between steak slices and jerky. Jerky, honestly, the way it’s been done, I’ve tasted, because I also, I do like jerky. I like it as a once in a while, not a lot, even though America kind of loves jerky, but then they get kind of a little frustrated and devastated when they taste one that wasn’t good.

because they are always looking, you’re always on the seek and the hunt for that good jerky. You know, the one that’s tender, that’s soft, and then you taste one, you go, oops, another rock, another rock. And all it is really is it’s, of it as you made a stir fry that you overcooked for 12 hours with a lot, a lot of sauce that kind of evaporated completely and then left it out overnight. And what you have left, usually you throw in the garbage.

Joe (09:54.021)
Sorry, that’s what a jerky is. I’m sorry if I said it like that. John, did I say it very well?

Jannine Krause (09:57.591)
Yeah.

jon (10:00.578)
Yeah, I mean, you you said it as you normally say things.

Joe (10:06.055)
Okay, so now okay now without insulting it it’s it’s I only said it after because you left it out for 20 You know 1224 hours and it kind of dried out and you’re like, this is not edible But then when you taste it in a bag that says jerky on it, you’re like, it’s not bad So next time before you throw it out just put it in a bag and call it jerky and ask your kids Say, how do you like this and see their opinion?

Jannine Krause (10:19.896)
Yeah.

Joe (10:35.08)
It’s the same, you know, it’s like it’s the same test I do with a good bottle of wine and a cheap bottle of wine. You know, when you have people sitting at your table and they go and they taste the good. Wow, this is so good. So wow, this is delicious. And then you go and switch the contents of a bottle inside just to just to just to test somebody a blind test and they taste the contents. That is the cheaper content coming out of the good bottle.

And they just go, wow, this tastes really good. Thank you for acknowledging that you have no clue what you’re talking about.

Jannine Krause (11:13.198)
Yeah.

Joe (11:15.239)
Okay, now going back to going back to steak slices, steak slices is never cooked and never soaked in sauces or syrups that evaporate or anything else. The only thing that evaporates that is taken out of the actual meat itself is its own is its own water. So its own water is taken out in an air-dried environment that’s temperature controlled that it slowly leaves it and leaves the tenderness inside.

jon (11:19.714)
Okay.

Jannine Krause (11:35.47)
Okay.

Joe (11:46.017)
while drying it out. So you’re taking a dry piece of steak slice which you’ve tried and you’ve realized you did not have to chew for 60 seconds to get it down.

Okay. Yes, it was dry-ish, but it wasn’t hard where you lost your jaws and chipped your tooth in the process.

Jannine Krause (12:10.07)
Yeah, incredibly important, incredibly important. So I’ve seen and probably other folks have seen the different steaks that they dry. And these are the dry aged, you know, higher price steaks. Is this kind of the same concept just to give folks a little bit of perspective or what’s it look like in the facility? Do you have a bunch of meat hanging down? Give us a little insight into what someone would find if they walked in to.

jon (12:20.09)
Okay. Okay.

Joe (12:37.064)
I love the question. I love it. That’s such a fantastic question because I’ll say this, that when we started the company, how we even came to steak slices, the original vision was dry aged steak in commercial masses. I always had this thing. said, we all love steak and we all go to a restaurant to have the steak.

Why is the steak in a restaurant tastes better than the same steak at home? And I went in and I started to do the research on that and realized that there is something that you’re buying in the store. A steak is usually, we call it a fresh piece of meat. Versus in the restaurant, what they do is something that’s called aging. Even though I realized that it’s not necessarily the case, they have hacks and shortcuts and all that.

But it’s, they call it aging. What the aging process does, it breaks down the fibers and allows the knee to actually relax and give you that, it takes away the denseness. You know, it’s like when a massage therapist gives you a massage on your shoulders and goes, you are so tense. Okay, that’s what the steak is like when it’s fresh. And if it’s relaxed for two weeks or three weeks, it relaxes.

So when you eat it, you’re actually having a relaxed piece of meat and not a tense piece of meat.

Jannine Krause (14:12.302)
That’s a great way to describe it. And I’m thinking it’s probably easier to digest too, if we’ve let things break down too. Now I think a lot of people might be like, three week old meat? That’s gross.

Joe (14:17.777)
Correct.

Jannine Krause (14:26.99)
But we have to go back to the foodie side of things and the aging and meat and it’s not like we’re letting it sit out, know, in the garbage can for three weeks. You have a very controlled environment. I am guessing that this is sitting in. Give us a little scoop as if you like walked in where you have the meat curing. I’m gonna call it curing. I don’t know what the best word, dry.

Joe (14:36.625)
Correct.

Joe (14:45.222)
No, there’s no curing. Curing is actually in a nitrate. When you do nitrate, that’s what the USDA calls curing. So there is no curing involved. Curing is actually a dirty word. Yeah. No, it’s air dried, controlled.

Jannine Krause (14:54.465)
Okay.

Jannine Krause (14:58.346)
Okay, we will not use it. Air drying? What’s the word then?

jon (14:58.484)
Ha ha ha.

Joe (15:12.071)
It’s not cured. It’s just it’s air dried with with pathogen control To make sure that there is no pathogens or bacterias or anything like that Everything is vacuumed out. So it’s a room. That’s actually it’s dry. There’s like it’s The moisture is constantly being sucked out of the room Okay, like the first day

Jannine Krause (15:37.208)
Okay, okay.

Joe (15:40.123)
first two days when the meat is put in a room, we watch the drain of the water being sucked out of the room. You’re talking about gallons of water, gallons. Just the moisture, because it creates the, it’s an environment that makes the meat sweat, and the sweat is constantly taken off and pulled into the environment of the room, which is then sucked out.

Jannine Krause (16:03.532)
Interesting.

Joe (16:04.423)
And eventually it just dries out to me just starts a drawing But it doesn’t let cert does there’s no circulation. It’s always fresh air and new air that’s in the room It’s evenly distributed so it doesn’t hit one spot over another You know, these are these are equipment that you talking a few million dollars in equipment So it’s like you think of these big refrigerator rooms in factories

Jannine Krause (16:23.918)
Sure. Sure.

Joe (16:31.889)
So think of it as a walk-in refrigerator. It’s just not a refrigerator, it’s a dry room.

Jannine Krause (16:38.988)
Makes sense, makes sense. And you know, I’m guessing because it’s a dry room, the temperatures control, you’ve got the bacteria, microbe control. There’s nothing being sprayed on the meat, nothing going onto it. It’s just literally in there, like drying, drying out.

Joe (16:53.896)
Well, it goes through a treatment before it hangs, which is basically putting the spices and the apple cider vinegar. So the apple cider vinegar is what really reduces the acidity and kind of raises the acidity, lowers the pH on it. So it’s all scientifically worked process in order to balance it, to make it into a

Jannine Krause (16:58.839)
Okay.

Jannine Krause (17:03.694)
Ha!

jon (17:07.422)
you

Joe (17:22.521)
environment that pathogens do not want to be in.

Jannine Krause (17:26.53)
Very cool, very cool. Now of course, this is gonna go little backwards. Where are you guys sourcing from? Where the cows come from? Where are these? Where are they? Where are your farms?

jon (17:28.319)
you

Joe (17:37.103)
So this is also, this is also, love the question. Who gave you that list of questions? This is fun, I love it.

jon (17:43.614)
He’s a superstar. He’s one of the best.

Joe (17:46.807)
Yeah. No, this is actually very good because everybody’s going to have this question. Everybody wants to know how do you do it. If you look at the bag, says grass-fed, pasture-raised. You cannot do that on American meat. If it was on American meat, that bag would be like $45. Why? Because there is nobody in America, land is expensive, time is expensive.

and and slowing down your process and not giving your beef the bulk that it needs which means Weight is money and I need to raise that cattle to be Weighing let’s say 1600 pounds by 27 months is the goal and if that thing is eating only grass that thing is gonna reach You feel lucky 800 900 pounds

Jannine Krause (18:42.498)
That is a good point to make, because I think a lot of people will look at the grass-fed grass finish kind of concept and go, why is everything not grass-fed grass finish? So it sounds like grass-fed green.

Joe (18:56.95)
Okay, mean, here, let’s, let’s

I’ve been doing a lot of work with with cattle and and you know in this field and understanding it. You know it’s like my brain needs to understand something as why in order to agree with something. And what I’ve seen is interesting you have when people say grass fed there’s nothing the only reason this is my it’s my thought it’s my theory it’s not my it’s not a fact I’m not stating a fact right now.

Jannine Krause (19:22.254)
Mm-hmm.

Joe (19:32.047)
is that when you’re doing, when you, when you’re looking at, grass fed versus grain fed, what is grain fed? Grain fed is usually corn. So now corn has a name in, in, in over here in our country, it has a name as, you know, GMO and whatever other names that you want to call it. But

jon (19:33.597)
Okay. Okay.

Jannine Krause (19:45.55)
you

Joe (20:03.419)
Just from what I’ve seen, it’s what I’ve seen, I don’t know it as a fact. The GMO that is in corn, from what I’m seeing is, the reason why we do GMO is to give us a perfect product, to give us a beautiful, it’s consistently beautiful.

Can you see me?

Jannine Krause (20:23.968)
Yes. Yep, it’ll do that sometimes.

Joe (20:26.809)
Okay. GMO, the reason for GMO is to give you that perfect, beautiful, consistent corn cob. Corn on the cob. know, it’s like, but it’s always the same. You don’t have ones that are yellow and white and this. It’s always exactly the way you produce it. You got that perfect DNA of robotics coming out every single time. That’s from what I understand is what the problem with corn is. We want natural. We want God’s natural gift of corn.

And if you were able to get non-GMO corn, you’d be happy. You’d be like, corn tastes delicious. Right? Okay. From what I’ve seen, when they get corn, they are getting the cheapest corn out there, which means it’s naturally wildly grown. There’s nothing consistent about it. It’s the stuff that’s coming. They can be bug infested. Cattle are a lot of eat bugs. It takes a good protein source for them.

Jannine Krause (21:03.746)
Yeah, yeah.

Joe (21:25.475)
It’s the stuff that you will never touch for the cows is delicious. So when they’re getting grain fed from, from what I’ve seen and I could be wrong, I don’t see GMO stuff being delivered to the cattle. I see wild grain being delivered, delivered to the cattle, the stuff and it sits there and it ferments. They don’t even give it fresh. That thing stuffed it, sits in halos.

jon (21:26.204)
you

Jannine Krause (21:30.787)
Yes.

Joe (21:54.905)
over there for months for it to ferment and the more it ferments, the better it tastes for the cattle and that’s what they’re eating. So now, so the cattle, whether going grain, grain finish or not, it does fatten them. It does give them, cause it’s got starch. So now if you want to go into starch category and saying the cattle are not meant to eat starch, they’re meant to eat just grass, you could go in that, in that avenue as well. In that direction.

jon (22:07.29)
Okay.

Okay.

Joe (22:22.969)
So now going from there being now that we’ve kind of gone over this the grain, you know, where I I’m not sure where the problem is with it, but we’re going to go. There’s a lot of people that love the green, the grass because it just sounds cleaner, sounds more natural, and it sounds like they ate what they wanted to eat, not what you fed them. OK, that’s and I think that’s that’s also another thought process. So now in South America.

Jannine Krause (22:43.618)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe (22:51.332)
They don’t have the mindset that we have here in America. When you go to Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, they are industrial, but they’re also, you have a lot more primitive and natural farmers that just have, they just harvest hundreds and thousands of cattle that are just natural. They sit there, land is cheap in these places. They have…

millions and millions of acres of land that cost pennies on the dollar and compared to what they cost here in America, which you cannot do that. Because even over here, even if you paid pennies on the dollar on the acreage, then you’re paying it on the taxes. Where over there, you don’t have that issue. South America does not have that issue. It’s a lot cheaper to raise and to, even the salaries are pennies on the dollar. So.

they don’t care, they’ll push them out, they love the nature, they love what they’re doing, so you’re getting, the cattle you’re getting when it says grass-fed, it’s natural as it gets. And by definition, there’s also no antibiotics in them as well.

Jannine Krause (24:02.786)
Yeah, yeah. And so what I hear you saying is you’re getting most of your meat from South America different. All okay and.

Joe (24:09.199)
Not most, all. All, simply for that reason, because I can know consistently that it’s all going to be grass-fed and grass-finished.

Jannine Krause (24:20.588)
Nice, nice. And now when we talk about kosher, and I think a lot of people are not aware of what kosher means, and what it means for meat, what it means for processing, what it means for the whole product. Can you share with us a little bit of how your product fits into the kosher realm and what that means for folks when they’re thinking through kosher?

Joe (24:46.065)
Kosher is a, John, you’ll add in if I miss anything.

jon (24:53.274)
Sure, and I’m going to make a slight correction to you after you finish too, if I may.

Joe (24:59.863)
Sure, okay good. Yeah, do you want to do it now?

jon (25:05.346)
Just I’m just going to just quote and again, is the according to the FDA in the US food and drug the US food and drug 95 % of animals in the USA are eating GMO crops.

Joe (25:25.059)
Mm-hmm. Okay, you see, I said I said a thought. didn’t say a fact. I specifically said it’s not a fact that just my thought from what it looks like. So I’m glad you corrected me and I stand corrected on that.

jon (25:26.285)
So.

jon (25:30.328)
Yeah.

jon (25:39.84)
Now, the debate can come after, there’s going to be this other side who’s going to say, that’s not a big deal. I don’t agree with that line of thinking. think…

Joe (25:43.143)
Exactly.

jon (25:56.002)
And this is again, so you had some conjecture and I’m going to have some conjecture here as well. It just seems to me that the if the major corporations are trying to make more money, one of the ways they’re doing it is by reducing the quality of their ingredients and therefore reducing their cost. Otherwise, why would they do it? Right. So now they’re going to say,

We can reduce our costs, but it’s safe. It’s this, it’s that. But we usually find out later on it really wasn’t. And it just, it doesn’t sound right. I as far as I use the word that you ushered in, it doesn’t sound kosher. I mean, something that a cow growing in its natural habitat, eating its natural foods without any,

Joe (26:51.547)
habitat.

jon (26:55.265)
modification would be the same as a cow that is being force fed genetically modified ingredients that probably with pesticides, others, you know, again, and you’re going to say that those the quality of what’s coming out is going to be the same. You know, I can.

Joe (27:16.269)
No, you’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right, John, because over here, the whole purpose of grain fed is like the whole thing when they came out with corn syrup is better than sugar. Okay. It was all like what, what big company and big pharma push that’s, that, that they pay the, you know, they pay the media and the company to, to direct and say, this is what’s healthy because

This is what we decided like, you know, what are the sweet sugar, sugar crisps and all those cereals that that are filled with sugar. That’s the healthy give your children this morning, right? You know, it’s what we grew up on. It’s healthy. It’s cereal. It’s healthy. It’s pure candy, but it’s healthy. It’s exactly what you’re saying, because the purpose of what they did here was

jon (27:53.815)
Yeah, yeah, they reduce the quality of even the sugars, you know. Yeah.

Joe (28:13.511)
came from, from the back end, came of, let me give you a trick how you can inflate the weight of your animal in a shorter period of time. And is that what you wanna eat? And if you are what you eat, then it means that’s gonna inflate your weight and inflate your size the same way you did to the animal.

jon (28:23.52)
Correct.

Jannine Krause (28:35.502)
Yeah.

Joe (28:35.995)
So you’re not eating healthy.

jon (28:36.216)
Correct.

Joe (28:40.177)
So either way you slice it, yeah, it’s gonna taste good, but it’s not healthy. So you have to choose what you want. You wanna choose healthier, you wanna taste good. Now if you can accomplish taste good and healthy, now you’re a winner.

Jannine Krause (28:55.564)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

jon (28:57.484)
And that was our goal in this process and to do our best, very best to be, you know, basically when you read a label, you know, three, four ingredients max, generally over 20, just, you know, where we’ve gone and where we are today, just for an example, McDonald’s French fries in the sixties were three ingredients, potatoes,

beef tallow and salt. And today I think it’s nine ingredients. Now why would a french fry go from three to nine? Now those nine ingredients, imagine, are much more expensive, I mean much cheaper than the three ingredients. again, in order for this expansion, and this is the challenge in the food and the medical field, is that

How do we keep a certain level of quality and yet expand our businesses and give people reasonable pricing? And I understand that debate. But by obfuscating the truth and just saying, it’s the same. mean, every company’s done it. Huda just said.

Coca-Cola why they why from sugar to corn syrup? Well corn syrup is Is I don’t know the exact proportions, but it’s like 10 to 1 You know in the same back the same in other words, so you it’s it’s one tenth the cost of sugar because it’s so refined and And it happened it and it packs the certain sweetness so the quality goes down and the quantities go up and that’s what we’ve

This is what this mass market of America has become, know, in fast food and all these things. So luckily, there’s a big movement to get back to small farming, more holistic, organically grown things. And people, you know, I know people have budgets, but a lot of people are saying, you know, I’m going to invest, if I invest in

jon (31:22.839)
a car or I invest in something for my home, why am I not going to invest for something I’m putting in it to fuel me fuel me? And if that’s going to cost me a little bit more every week to get a little bit better fuel, I’m going to do it. You’re not going to put, you know, no ethanol in your car that’s not going to fuel your car. You know, so that’s where we are today. You know, just to shift into a

a general subject and what we’ve tried to do and again, know, our costs are sometimes inhibit us from putting a product out that, you know, is a mass market product, you know, but thankfully in the time that I’ve been here, it’s rarely, rarely been a price issue at all because people care about what they, they know they got something good.

And like when you go to a good restaurant and you’re happy with the meal, you’re not upset with the price. the person who buys one of these and then for let’s say $9 and then doesn’t care that the next time they buy a bag of chips for a dollar, that person is to be hard for us to have a consistent customer. But those who

Jannine Krause (32:28.426)
No. No.

jon (32:52.534)
Constantly only only need this and this is one of the things that I’ve been And this this will be appeal to your audience and and to to to our audience that we’ve been trying to develop If you’re only eating a certain way, you’re not going to have the chips. So you need to have this That’s not even a choice If a person is not eating, but if you’re eating everything and it doesn’t care, you know, oh, yeah, I’ll try this one day I’ll try that one day

Jannine Krause (33:10.894)
Great.

jon (33:20.021)
And of course the mind will say, I’ll take the cheaper product. But if you’re on a keto diet, a low carb diet, carnivore, or you’re transitioning into the world of that world and trying to be more conscious of what you eat, you’re not going to care. You need to eat that product and you’re going to pay for it.

Jannine Krause (33:54.147)
Well, I would wholeheartedly agree. mean, one of the things that comes to my mind, because I am always looking for something of this nature, because, you know, one of the biggest things that actually this label has it, so I was gonna kind of show folks who are watching on YouTube, with the 32 grams of protein in there, that’s highly attractive because some women will be eating like yogurt, cottage cheese, and a protein bar just to get that.

jon (34:18.39)
Okay.

Jannine Krause (34:22.08)
and what that does to the body, all those different things, we don’t know, right? Whereas if it’s something simple, and this in particular is just the traditional steak slices, what, to me, that is a much more simple.

and quick, easy to grab and go type of snack. And when many women are trying to get more protein in, I’m looking at it going like, this is very easy. And this is why, of course, I wanted to bring you guys on because I wanted to highlight the folks behind the business. Because at this point…

We are a little jaded as to who owns businesses, who’s actually caring, what’s true on labels, and really the story behind things. So of course I have to ask though, the flavors, like the truffle, who came up with that one? Was it either of you? Joke, nice. Good call.

jon (35:13.148)
Joe is, is.

I’m just gonna say this, forgive me publicly, Joe drives us nuts. We have a meeting and we start talking about how to implement and execute things. And he’s in another world. He comes out with, we’re gonna do this and we’re gonna do that. And then we have the CEO sitting at the meeting and it’s just like, we could have a comedy skit. It’s like, again, you’re off on a tangent, but.

Thank God, thank God, thank God for his creativity. Because, you know, this is what separates us from the pack in the sense that he comes up with really amazing ideas. I slammed the door to make sure they get implemented and he comes up with stuff like this, like I would have never thought. And it’s been a huge hit. So I give him big, hugs.

Jannine Krause (36:08.706)
Yes.

jon (36:10.964)
as we say. So yes, he comes up with a lot of creative stuff and which is a lot of fun to work with.

Jannine Krause (36:11.126)
Yeah.

Joe (36:17.927)
John, I’ll hold you accountable to that next time. I won’t let you beat me up for it.

jon (36:22.166)
Jannine Krause (36:25.106)
my gosh. No, the, I mean the truffles genius and really, you know, we had the other one, it was the, I think it was the chili flavored one as well. And my husband stole it. That’s why I don’t have it here today because he liked that one. And so what ended up happening is like this for me, I ate the whole bag in one sitting. was like a whole meal for me.

which, yes, people could say eat your veggies, all that, but if you are traveling and say you’re at the airport, well, it’s not like you’re gonna be bringing something along with you unless you wanted to buy the $20 salad. And so, nevertheless, these are so great for hikes, for active folks, travel, on the go, busy, I love it. And the other big thing that I had to note, back to my teeth, and I didn’t break my tooth on yours, but also they’re so soft, they don’t get stuck in your teeth and you can’t get them out. Did anyone ever tell you guys that before?

Joe (37:16.069)
Yeah, yes, because I do eat it all the time and I don’t usually have the problem, so I’m good. And usually it does happen to me on other stuff.

Jannine Krause (37:23.054)
It’s a fascinating…

Jannine Krause (37:28.032)
Right? Like spinach. but tell me this. What’s that? Yes.

Joe (37:29.255)
By the way, I need a little correction on your, not your fault, it’s just what you have in front of you. You pointed out 32 grams. Okay, the new bag’s actually saying at 36 grams.

Jannine Krause (37:41.59)
Yes.

Jannine Krause (37:46.254)
my goodness, there you go. Even more bonus.

jon (37:48.536)
you you

Joe (37:49.061)
Yes, we made a mistake on the calculation. you’re drying it and losing all that moisture, the math starts to get a little messed up. And then also it would have been 32 if it was slightly cooked, but by the fact that it’s actually never heat treated, which maintains a lot of the nutrients and natural proteins, it’s 36 grams for the same servings.

jon (38:05.587)
But I want to say, want to say I want to thank you for the.

Jannine Krause (38:17.014)
All right, well thanks for the transparency there because then I mean, there’s a lot of variance sometimes when we eat things and don’t know which amount. So this is good, even more of a protein boost. Yeah.

Joe (38:26.343)
Yeah, correct.

jon (38:35.664)
the thought of as somebody’s come into the company and said, we’re not just a product, we’re a vehicle for people’s use and how it’s used. Because products are products, but like you say, we’re on the go, on the run, on the train, on the traveling, grabbing something like this that’s not gonna spike your blood sugar.

Jannine Krause (38:51.064)
Mm-hmm.

jon (39:02.706)
And just you know where you’re have these ups and downs when you’re traveling this kind of level things off with with the protein count and You’re gonna get clean protein on the way or after the gym before the gym, etc. So you know that’s we’re you know our one of ours our Slogan so to speak is you know, wherever you go. We’re with you, you know, so

We take Joburg with you and so I appreciate the usefulness of the product because that’s really, really key here. Because if we’re sitting down, the bottom line is that if we could go into our kitchen, make three square meals a day or two, whatever you have, this is not necessary. But we live in a society where you’re stuck on the road. Where are you, by the way?

Jannine Krause (39:29.57)
Nice.

Jannine Krause (39:56.911)
I’m in Wisconsin. I am just outside of Milwaukee.

jon (40:00.195)
Okay, amazing. So but you know, you’re in the traffic in Milwaukee and every city has five o’clock, right? Whatever it is and you’re hungry, you know, or you need you have an afternoon you’re at you’re you’re at work wherever it is we live in a in a society where we have to have some Snacks so to speak and and and by the way the other area here where where where is very important kids kids love these my grandkids

They come up, where’s the job? Right away. And you can’t force that on them. They love this. And I feel so good when they, like if they come over and they want, know, the not so good stuff, but now they want this, you know, and it’s so great because you feel like, wow, you know, you’re giving them something and they share it and whatever, and they’re getting a nice, good protein. it’s really amazing. So it’s facet of the…

the diversity of.

Joe (41:02.695)
Yes. You got stuck there. Yeah, there you are.

Jannine Krause (41:04.076)
No.

Jannine Krause (41:08.041)
Yeah.

jon (41:11.475)
I appreciate Janine your thoughts and how you eloquently and enthusiastically showed the usefulness of our product. So I want to thank you for that.

Jannine Krause (41:31.352)
No problem. Problem.

Joe (41:31.505)
So I want to address one thing. You asked me a question before and then kind of sidetracked, didn’t never answered it regarding the kosher.

Jannine Krause (41:36.952)
Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (41:42.55)
Yes, yes, please, please enlighten me.

Joe (41:44.741)
Yeah, your audience is going to be like, is he straying away from the question?

Jannine Krause (41:50.872)
We don’t, yeah, we don’t want to give them that impression.

Joe (41:52.967)
No, so kosher. What is kosher? How gory can I be or should I keep it?

Jannine Krause (42:00.611)
No, go ahead and tell it like it is. think people need to know.

Joe (42:04.719)
Okay, kosher is, well, the animal is kosher by definition. The way the Bible has prescribed per se as what’s kosher and what’s not kosher. So we’ll talk in the animals, it has to have split hooves and re-choose its cut. Okay, those are the two signs of what a kosher animal is. Good, now that you defined what a kosher animal is,

It’s not enough that it’s a kosher animal. It also has to be processed in a kosher fashion. And a kosher fashion has to be in the most humane possible way. And the way God has said it that the way you have to kill the animal, that it should feel the least amount of pain as possible to be humane. Otherwise it forfeits. For example, the knife that’s used is the sharpest possible knife

that you could possibly even imagine. Take a razor blade and think 10 times sharper. Okay? And there is no even…

we’ll say even the slightest ding on the blade, slightest. So there is a rabbi that actually does the process, the actual cutting. And then there’s another rabbi that inspects the knife before and after.

So before is to prevent a disaster because if he checked it before, then it’s fine. If he checks it after, so it’s just a prevention for the, either for the next one, if I’m not mistaken, but whichever one, if there’s a problem with the blade, which they checked the blade before and after, and it’s got even a nick. You’re talking about when you’re going with your nail and you feel the slightest nick.

jon (44:02.589)
Thanks.

Joe (44:04.015)
The animal is now not kosher because it even slightly, slightly felt a pain because of that little jag in the blade. That’s how smooth that’s number one. Number two is then it’s so now if that passes, then they check for health. And the way God said the two easiest ways to check for health is you check the lungs for lesions, which means John, just put yourself on mute.

Jannine Krause (44:15.276)
Wow.

jon (44:23.324)
Very useful.

Joe (44:33.48)
Yeah, you check for lesions and for infections, which is very easily visible, which means that the lungs have no holes in it. The lungs are clean. They inflate. actually take the lung and inflate it with a pump and it’s got to hold like a tire. It’s got to hold the pressure. If that thing pops or or doesn’t hold the pressure, it’s not kosher. Animals not kosher because it means it wasn’t healthy enough. So when you’re looking at a kosher animal,

Jannine Krause (45:01.08)
Bye.

Joe (45:03.385)
you’re looking at practically the healthiest animal.

It doesn’t matter the kind of animal, what it ate and stuff like that. At the end of the day, it’s got to pass the inspection, which means you have the rabbi inspection. Only after the rabbi inspects it, only then the USDA inspects it. Which means the rabbinical biblical inspection is priority over the USDA.

Jannine Krause (45:09.496)
Wow.

Joe (45:33.607)
Or the other, the USDA checks it and only then the rabbis check it and if it doesn’t pass, it could be USDA grade A, but if it doesn’t pass the rabbinical inspection, it’s not kosher. Why? Because the Bible said it’s not good enough. So the Bible was, God was, when He gave us the permission to eat animal, He said, I’m only gonna let you eat it. One, you were kind to it and actually,

Jannine Krause (45:47.617)
makes sense

Jannine Krause (45:51.544)
Yeah.

Joe (46:03.089)
cared for it as its essence that it’s coming to give you life and not as something that belongs to you or anything like that. It has to be, you have to treat it well, number one. And number two is it’s gotta be healthy. And only then is it good. Now you have the third part, which is actually completely getting the blood out of it. Blood is forbidden.

Jannine Krause (46:21.87)
you

Joe (46:31.941)
by the Bible to have inside meat, which is also in the non-Kosher world, the blood actually adds a certain flavor and adds a weight.

because it is a liquid. So every single kosher piece of meat actually has to be salted and the salt accomplishes two things. One, it actually goes through a mini curing process right at the get-go to kill all bacterias because it’s salted. So it killed most of the pathogens right then and there because they cannot handle the salt. You’re talking a lot of salt. And then two, all the blood is taken out.

Jannine Krause (47:10.082)
Yeah.

Joe (47:13.423)
of the piece of meat and then it’s rinsed. So now you have what you would call the best possible version of a piece of meat that’s kind of cleaned from any outside elements or artifacts or anything like that that can affect the meat in any way shape or form.

Jannine Krause (47:35.65)
Wow. I’m blown away. I had no idea. I had no idea.

Joe (47:39.375)
Yeah, that’s kosher. So when you see kosher, you’re talking about quality wise, it’s great. It’s the best grade. It doesn’t mean it’s the tastiest because of a grade A prime or select or something like that. You’re talking about from a health perspective. It’s from a health perspective. Grass fed and kosher should rank on your level higher than just a non kosher grass fed.

Jannine Krause (48:02.754)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (48:09.88)
would agree. I’ve always kind of told folks if you can find something kosher. I didn’t know all the details of kosher, but for me, energetically, know, taking care of the animal, making sure that, you know, when it’s killed, it’s, you know, there’s minimal amount of pain. For me, that means a lot because I think that energy transfers to our meat and what we eat. And that’s huge. That’s huge. So.

Joe (48:30.703)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jannine Krause (48:37.004)
I hope a lot of folks just heard that big time, how that works. That’s so huge.

Joe (48:37.095)
and

Joe (48:41.82)
Yeah, I mean, look, the Bible says, you know, that when you wake up in the morning, you have to make sure your animal eats before you. You have to feed your animal before you feed yourself. So if you’re a farmer, that’s the law. Which means you know that God has looked out for the inferior being prior to the superior being. Because you know to look out for yourself.

The inferior being is dependent on you. You have a dog, you better feed it before you feed yourself. Because he’s counting on you.

Jannine Krause (49:16.878)
Yeah, yeah. my goodness. That just brings up a whole nother level of what energy you get from the food you eat. And this is, you know, I could talk for hours on this, but nevertheless, not only are we getting high protein, not only do we have a snack on the go, and we have something that is clean, now we have something that’s high vibe energy, which is definitely kind of rounds out what I’m looking for when it comes to the food industry.

jon (49:18.971)
you

Joe (49:43.143)
One second, Janine, we’re gonna have to have a whole nother podcast just on the energy thing? Because I’ve been an energy healer for 20 years.

Jannine Krause (49:54.603)
and

Joe (49:54.681)
or you want to talk about energy, that’s a whole nother podcast. We can do that. I am more than happy to discuss energy, energy healing, vibe, all that. I’d love it.

jon (50:05.317)
I have to get my Joe fishing pole out and fish him in because this guy will go on for days and years.

Jannine Krause (50:12.438)
You

Joe (50:14.823)
you

Jannine Krause (50:16.302)
Fair enough. But I love it. I mean, it’s something that I think everyone’s got to think about, though. You we don’t think about the energy that comes from the animal that we eat if the animal is mistreated for all these different things. I mean, it’s just it’s a whole circle of life. And nevertheless, I really appreciate you guys taking the time today to chat with me and share on JovovacMeat. And I’m excited to share on the steak slices and put this one up, because I think for folks, it’s really important to know that there are snacks out there.

Joe (50:29.329)
Correct.

Jannine Krause (50:46.188)
that they can get a hold of that are easy, energetically high vibe, and check the boxes for all the proteins. So we’ve got John showing all the flavors there for us.

jon (50:57.84)
No, wanted to say, and I also wanted to say we have, and you’ll put in the show, we have a special discount for your viewers and listeners. It’ll be healthfix20, code at joebergmeats.com, J-O-B-U-R-G-M-E-A-T-S.com. And the code is healthfix20, which gets them 20 % off. And that’ll be in the show notes, but I wanted to…

Give a shout out and thank you for this.

Joe (51:28.411)
I wanna, can I give a last note here? Well, I don’t, not a last, my last note here. To your audience, I would say, even if you’re not ready to purchase right now, go and put your email address in.

Jannine Krause (51:32.566)
Yes, please.

Joe (51:46.335)
Put your email address in just to stay updated on our new lines. We are coming out with so many, so many new products and flavors. Like right now I’m working on a mango habanero flavor. Okay, and I’m trying to keep that, you know, it’s very easy to just get flavors. I’m working very hard on keeping it keto, paleo, and Whole30 clean.

Jannine Krause (52:00.205)
Nice.

Joe (52:13.507)
So it’s scientifically, it’s a challenge to do that without all the fancy ingredients that they use and keeping it real. So I’m working on all those to do that in a very clean fashion in a clean way. And.

Look out, I mean it just takes time, but in the next six months we’re gonna have such a beautiful lineup of clean products of your everyday commodity that you even make for dinner that you’re gonna be like, wow, you’ve made this clean and delicious, we can’t wait to try it, and I want you to be the first to know about it.

Jannine Krause (52:52.182)
Awesome, awesome. Well, I look forward to being one of the first ones as well to know about it. Thank you guys for coming on and sharing all the details on Joberg meat and also educating us quite a bit on the meat industry. Thanks again.

Joe (53:05.913)
It’s our partner.

jon (53:06.37)
Thank you, it was amazing. All the best.

Jannine Krause (53:09.762)
All right, I’m gonna.