Jay Moyle

For Moyle, smoking and jerking meat began with venison and fish and a couple of old refrigerators in the backyard. Then with the advent of the small and affordable Little Chief smokers, the operation moved into the garage.

But one, two and three Little Chiefs quickly proved to be insufficient to produce the amount of smoked meat Jay wished to produce. Fortunately, Luhr Jensen developed a Big Chief smoker, and soon Moyle had three of them in operation.

"But when we moved into the new facility, that type of smoker wouldn't work, so we had to get a smoker that would do the job," Moyle says.

After purchasing a smoker from back East, Moyle promptly figured out a way to double its capacity. However, that still wasn't enough to keep up with jerky sales, particularly in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Finally, in 2001, Moyle purchased a brand-new computer-operated Koch oven with the ability to smoke over 99 different items with just the touch of a button. "That was a dream," Moyle says of the massive Koch. "That put us so we're now in control, rather than it controlling us."

"The recipes we have are all kind of trial-and-error recipes, and have come up through the evolution of the business." Moyle says. "But it's the old method of smoking. It's real smoke from hickory chips. A lot of good flavor there." "The majority of the new stuff you get today is marinated in the liquid smoke and then dehydrated."

"About two or three times a week someone who's never tried it before will see the sign, stop in, buy a piece of jerky and drive off," Moyle explains. "Then within a minute, they've turned around and come back to buy more."