HJOE was working the truck stop angle awhile back

HJOE was working the truck stop angle awhile back but it was tough without the larger vendor/distributor. These guys want as few as POs as possible so individual vendors have to have something very substantial for them to even consider it as the start up cost is very high. Often they will put the potential vendor in touch with existing distributor to see if they can work together. We do this sort of thing day in and day out with our distributor network.

The Loves, Pilots, TAs, etc are very large and have tremendous traffic that is regional/national based instead of just local like the neighborhood c-store. With the OTR truckers going through- these truck stops can be big on the marketing front as well. They have gotten rather sophisitcated in their reward point systems and tying food, refreshments, showers, and maintenace together to offer nice rewards for loyalty.

The downside is there has been a doubling at least of new jerky brands out there and finding shelf space and differentiating ones self will be difficult. This is where marketing becomes critical and driving the brand through outside segments (SM, TV, radio, billboards, print ads) as well as the inside segments (distributor programs to drive sales to their stores).

There arent a lot of actual jerky producers out there - most of these are rebrands so getting the taste profile, being readily available, and busting through the others who are also trying to break out with new brands wont be easy.