The Vernon factory, where farmer John Hotdog was once made, will soon round out a million-pound meat sticks.
It will be Archer’s second manufacturing facility. This needs to expand beyond the San Bernardino factory, Eugene Kang said.
Part of the Vernon factory left by farmer John in 2023 has been completely renovated by Archer and will employ more than 200 people when it opens in September. The addition of the Vernon plant would cost around $30 million.
Archer took over the processing plant of farmer John, Kang said, where John John cooked ham, sausages and hot dogs.
Farmer John supplied meat for decades for the famous Dodger dogs at Dodger Stadium, but was unable to reach a new contract agreement with the Dodgers. Farmer John stopped becoming the stadium’s main hot dog provider in 2021.
Vernon Facilities.
(Pascal Shirley for Archer)
“I don’t know exactly what happened between them and the Dodgers,” he said, but “We’re now the official Dodgers meat snack.”
The Dodgers recently signed a multi-year deal with Archer, which MLB announced last month. Archer’s jerky meat and meat sticks are available for sale at the Stadium Concession Stand, a satisfying development for Can, a Southern California native.
“When I was a child growing up, Dodger dogs were ingrained in my childhood and my life,” he said.
He also developed a jerky flavour while packing shelves into family convenience stores scattered across the Southern California desert. As a young man on a road trip with his aunt to the Grand Canyon, he fell in love with a jerk sampled from a roadside stand.
Archer CEO and Founder Eugene Kang with Product.
(Armpire)
Can tracks down a small, jerky maker near San Bernardino and goes to meet a producer, an 80-year-old man named Celestino “Charlie” Miralki, who is close to retirement. Kang and his aunt bought Miralki’s business in 2011 and built his own jerky empire using Miralki’s recipes.
Archer achieved a breakthrough in 2014 through a partnership with Huy Fong Sriracha, creating Sriracha Flasured Jerky.
The new flavors attracted the attention of several major retailers, including Kroger and buds, and helped Archer expand its reach, Kang said. Currently, the 30,000 stores selling Archer products include Costco, Whole Foods Market, Walmart, Target, Albertsons and 7-Eleven.
Kang said the company employs nearly 200 people and saw a 90% increase in sales last year, fueling primarily Meat Sticks, and will earn nearly $500 million in revenue over the next 18 months.
The new Vernon plant, which costs around $30 million, will focus on beef and turkey meat sticks and will eventually operate three shifts a day to produce £36 million of meat sticks per year, Kang said.
Most of Archer’s grass-fed beef supply comes from Australia and New Zealand, the company said. Archer participates in the Premium Clean Laid-Out, Protein-rich and Convenient Snack Food category.
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