The Collaboration
Jack Link's, the Minong, Wisconsin-based meat snack manufacturer that claims the No. 1 position in its category, has launched a limited-time co-branded line with Meat Church BBQ, the Texas-founded barbecue lifestyle brand led by pitmaster Matt Pittman. The two-SKU LTO is available exclusively at select Walmart locations across 48 states through September 25.
The lineup consists of Holy Cow Beef Jerky, inspired by Meat Church's Texas-style Holy Cow BBQ rub, and Honey Hog Pork Jerky, drawn from the brand's fan-favorite Honey Hog BBQ rub and built around a savory-smoke-meets-sweet-honey flavor profile. Both products are positioned as premium portable protein, leaning into the high-protein snacking trend that has driven sustained category growth across convenience, club, and mass retail channels.
Flavor as a Functional Driver
For Link Snacks, the parent company behind Jack Link's, flavor authenticity is increasingly the front-line sales argument in a crowded snack set. Holly LaVallie, SVP of Marketing and RD&I at Link Snacks, framed the Meat Church partnership as a validation of the brand's flavor-first development philosophy: good protein credentials alone don't drive repeat purchase if the taste profile falls short. Pittman, who has built Meat Church into a recognized name through award-winning seasonings, recipe content, and competitive BBQ, brought established consumer trust in rub and seasoning flavor to the co-development process.
The collaboration follows a broader industry pattern of meat snack brands using limited-edition influencer or brand partnerships to create urgency at shelf — a tactic that has proven effective at driving trial in mass and convenience channels where the snack wall can be difficult to navigate. For operators and retail buyers, the LTO structure also provides a low-risk mechanism to test flavor adjacencies without permanent planogram commitments.
Retail and Channel Context
Walmart's role as the exclusive retail partner concentrates distribution through one of the highest-volume snack channels in the country, maximizing unit velocity potential over a compressed selling window. The 48-state footprint and "while supplies last" framing add scarcity mechanics that have become standard toolkit for short-run collaborations in the protein snack segment.
Link Snacks operates across 11 countries and manages a portfolio that includes Lorissa's Organic Snacks, Golden Island, and several international brands, giving it significant manufacturing scale to support retailer-specific exclusives. The Meat Church partnership represents the brand-collaboration play within that broader innovation pipeline — a format increasingly favored by category leaders looking to capture incremental shelf space and social media reach simultaneously.
For foodservice-adjacent buyers tracking grab-and-go and convenience channel trends, the LTO signals continued investment in premium, flavor-forward positioning within the meat snack segment, where consumers are increasingly comparing jerky SKUs against broader high-protein snack alternatives including cheese crisps, roasted nuts, and protein bars.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
