There are many notable jerky and meat snack companies out there and most are thriving as the snackification of America continues apace. Jerky in any form has been a staple snack since navigators used sextets to sail the seven seas and discover more jerky, as John Smith is purported to have in the early 1600s when he marked a map of Virginia and wrote, “as drie as their jerkin beefe in the West Indies.”