For some family businesses, finding success in a niche food industry may seem like rolling a boulder uphill. Not so for the owners of Golden Island Jerky in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. The company is on a roll, all right, but of a very different nature. While president Anna Kan declines to disclose revenue, “it has increased roughly 300% since 2008,” she says. The company has close to 200 employees and produces more than a million pieces of jerky per week.
The company, which offers more than 20 varieties of beef and pork jerky, prides itself on its family recipes and its 60 years of experience. Kan, 40, is part of the third generation, or what she refers to as G3. Like the other G3 family members, Kan helped out in the business as a kid, but she never saw it as her life's work. She obtained a communications degree and held various positions in that field. But in 1997, her older brother Tony Kan called to say he needed her help. She stepped in as head of the company and he moved to an advisory role. Today he's back, as vice president of strategic management.
Kan's mother, Cher, and her uncle Ting Shih (or G2, as she calls them) jointly own the company. Ting is the chef, and Cher still visits every day to help out. In all, eight family members work at the company, and Kan says G4 is not far behind.
Chun Fa Shih, Kan's maternal grandfather, started the company in Taiwan after serving as a medic in World War II. Because of the horrors he witnessed, he chose not to pursue a career as a doctor and entered the dried meat business instead. Kan's uncle Eric, one of Chun's sons, brought the company to the U.S., to Iowa, in 1981, and in the next decade her uncle Ting and her mother decided to focus on jerky in California. Eric remained in Iowa to cook and sell a dried, shredded pork product for the Asian market in the U.S., while the other branch of the family incorporated in California in 1995.
Exporting to Asia might seem logical, but the company isn't quite ready. “It's possible we'll look at that in the future, but we have our hands full with just North America,” says Kan. She says the company hasn't been affected by economic downturns. “We're in the food industry,” Kan notes. “People eat, day in and day out, and we're going to be here.”
Golden Island Jerky differs from the packages of tough sticks commonly found on convenience store counters. Flavors include mandarin orange, chili lime, Korean barbecue and teriyaki. The jerky is soft; contains no preservatives, hormones or nitrates; and has lower sodium content than other jerkies. The snack appeals to fitness enthusiasts as well as to women and children. A few of the flavors are gluten-free and appeal to that health segment as well.
“We tell people that jerky is the oldest way of preserving meat, and so every culture has their own version,” explains Kan. The products have done well in Central Market stores in Texas and in Asian groceries. Company revenue increased significantly when the company started selling through Costco stores in 2007. Golden Island has invested several million dollars into infrastructure and technology to prepare for entering larger markets.
Golden Island revamped its website in 2012 to allow online ordering, which has positioned the company for even greater growth. Kan knows that success is in itself a challenge, however. “We don't want to grow too big too fast,” she says. “We want to make sure we have the infrastructure to support our growth.”
Patricia Olsen is a New Jersey writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, On Wall Street, USA Weekend, Hemispheres and other publications.
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