Founders Tony Souza and Craig Bray. In June of 1976 Tony’s family moved from the city out to the country. Their new neighbors were the Bray family. Tony was 12 Craig was 11 – instant friends who shared common interests: sports, hunting, fishing, and GREAT beef jerky. One day Craig brought home some venison jerky from his parent’s ranch in Soledad California. It was very good, but Tony’s mother said she could make it better. She pulled out her long lost (now secret) homemade Beef jerky recipe from 1963 to compare to the outstanding venison jerky. When the votes were in, it was no contest – mom’s original Beef jerky won hands down, and she passed the secret family jerky recipe on to her son, Tony. After high school Craig and Tony went to work for General Beverages – A company that Mr and Mrs Bray owned over the years Craig and Tony were always making batches of beef jerky; trying new styles sizes and formulas. But over time they realized that nothing compared to mom’s original recipe. Everyone loved the product, so they decided to get a U.S.D.A. facility under U.S.D.A. Inspection to ramp up production. The founders left the beverage business in late 1998 and by February 1999 they were selling Beefy Boys beef jerky to retail. In 2013 the Beefy Boys Brand was purchased by Top 10 Produce LLC, a Salinas California brand holding company. The Beefy Boys were hired on, and the local Monterey County CA brand went nationwide.
What can we say? This company is founded on a secret family recipe dating back to 1963. And, talk about a hand crafted operation… We personally travel to each meat supplier and hand pick our top rounds. This makes all the difference. We personally inspect each of the 330 lbs per week – half of that is hand sliced with a knife we need certain shapes and sizes – the bigger the better for beefy boys jerky. The cooking process is very slow no rushing of our product. Once fully cooked its set aside for cool down once cool we use butcher scissors to shape and size our product. Call us anytime at 888-669-2010 to place an order, or to tell us how much you love the order you just received!