Reach for Meat Candy when you want a sweet, smoky, cooked beef jerky that a kid will fight a sibling over, reach for biltong when you want a clean, air-dried, vinegar-cured snack built around lean protein and nothing else. For a road trip playlist and a family sharing a bag, Meat Candy is the better call. For a straightforward high-protein snack you can eat by the handful without added sugar, biltong is the better call. Both are Grub Company, both are real beef, and neither one is the "junk" version of the other.
That last point matters because it's easy to find jerky content online that treats sweet, smoky, cooked jerky as the cheap, gas-station version of the category and air-dried biltong as the "honest" alternative. That framing doesn't hold up here. Grub Company makes both. Meat Candy is a different snack, built for a different moment, with its own ingredient list, its own certification, and its own reason to sit on the shelf right next to biltong.
Meat Candy vs. Biltong: Side-by-Side
| Criteria | Meat Candy | Biltong |
|---|---|---|
| Process | Cooked and smoked, sauce-based | Air-dried and vinegar-cured |
| Flavor profile | Sweet, smoky, BBQ-forward | Clean, traditional, savory-spiced |
| Texture | Tender, sticky sauce coating | Firmer, drier chew |
| Sugar content | Contains brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, corn syrup | No added sugar |
| Gluten | Contains wheat (via soy sauce) | Gluten-free |
| Soy | Contains soy (via soy sauce) | Soy-free |
| Base protein | Real, premium sliced beef | Real, premium sliced beef |
| Kosher status | Certified Glatt Kosher (Harav Weissmandl, Aleph K) | Certified Glatt Kosher |
| Best occasion | Family snacking, road trips, kids' lunchboxes | Everyday lean-protein snacking |
| Brand voice | Nostalgic, whimsical, nursery-rhyme flavor names | Clean, traditional |
Meat Candy: Pros and Cons
Meat Candy is Grub Company's beef jerky line, built around two flavors, Hickory Kickory Dock and Baa-Baa BBQ Sheep, both $7.99 for a 2oz bag. It's cooked and smoked rather than air-dried, and the flavor comes from a real sauce stack: teriyaki sauce, BBQ sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, and Tabasco sauce, with mesquite or hickory smoke flavor layered in depending on the bag. Grub Company describes the line as "childhood nostalgia meets gourmet snacking," and the flavor lives up to that description, sweet, smoky, and a little playful, "each bite is whimsical, just like your favorite nursery rhymes."
- Sweet, smoky, sauce-based flavor that reads closer to a BBQ glaze than a dry cure
- Two distinct flavor profiles, a spicier hickory-mesquite BBQ and a tangier Korean-style BBQ
- Tender, cooked-jerky texture instead of a firm air-dried chew
- Certified Glatt Kosher by Harav Weissmandl and Aleph K
- Contains wheat, soy, and added sugar (honey, brown sugar, maple syrup, corn syrup), so it's not gluten-free, soy-free, or low-sugar
Biltong: Pros and Cons
Biltong is Grub Company's original line, air-dried and vinegar-cured instead of cooked, with a cleaner, more traditional flavor and no sauce stack sitting on top of it. Where Meat Candy leans into sugar and smoke flavor for a nostalgic, playful eating experience, biltong leans into the cure itself, real beef, air-dried, with no added sugar and no gluten or soy in the ingredient list.
- Air-dried, vinegar-cured process with no cooking or sauce layer
- No added sugar
- Gluten-free and soy-free
- Leaner, more protein-first eating experience
- Firmer, drier texture that some snackers find less approachable than a cooked jerky, especially kids used to sweeter flavors
The Ingredient and Allergen Gap
The biggest practical difference between these two Grub Company snacks comes down to what's actually in them, not just how they taste. Meat Candy's soy sauce base (water, soybeans, wheat, salt, sodium benzoate) puts both wheat and soy into every bag, and the BBQ sauce adds sugar, corn syrup, and molasses, with brown sugar, maple syrup, and honey stacked on top. None of that shows up in biltong. If you're checking labels for gluten, soy, or added sugar, biltong is the one that clears all three. Meat Candy clears none of them, and it isn't trying to. The two lines aren't competing on the same nutritional ground, they're built around different eating experiences entirely.
Both lines share one thing completely: the underlying beef quality. Grub Company's standard is real, premium beef and nothing else, no mechanically separated chicken, no ground "mystery beef," no leftover scraps, and both Meat Candy and biltong start from top-quality sliced beef before the process splits, one goes into the smoker with sauce, the other goes into the air-dry cure with vinegar.
Texture and Eating Experience
Biltong's air-dried, vinegar-cured process produces a firmer, drier chew, closer to what people picture when they think of a traditional cured meat snack. Meat Candy's cooked, sauce-based process produces a tender bite with a sticky, caramelized coating, closer to a smoked BBQ snack than a dry cure. Neither texture is objectively better, they're doing different jobs. Biltong's firmer chew works well for slow, steady snacking where you want the protein to last. Meat Candy's tender, sauce-coated bite works well when you want a snack that feels more like a treat, which tracks with the nostalgic, dessert-adjacent branding Grub Company built the line around.
Best For Different Moments
Best for kids and family snacking: Meat Candy. The sweeter, smokier flavor and softer texture are an easier sell for kids than a firmer, unsweetened cure, and the nursery-rhyme names make it a fun product to hand a kid without explaining much.
Best for a lean, protein-first snack: Biltong. No added sugar, no gluten, no soy, just air-dried beef, makes it the pick when you want the closest thing to a plain, high-protein snack.
Best for road trips and tailgates: Meat Candy. The bolder, sweeter flavor holds attention over a long stretch of driving or a few hours at a game in a way a cleaner-tasting biltong sometimes doesn't.
Best for anyone avoiding gluten or soy: Biltong, without question. Meat Candy contains both through its soy sauce base, so if you're checking labels for either, biltong is the only one of the two that works.
The Bottom Line
Meat Candy and biltong are two honest, separate snacks from the same company, not a "real" option and a "lesser" one. Meat Candy is cooked, smoked, sweet, and built for the moments where a snack doubles as a treat, road trips, tailgates, a kid's lunchbox. Biltong is air-dried, vinegar-cured, and clean, built for the moments where you want lean protein without sugar, gluten, or soy anywhere near the label. Pick based on the moment, not on which one sounds more virtuous. If you want sweet and smoky, buy Meat Candy. If you want clean and lean, buy biltong. Either way, you're buying the same standard of real, premium beef Grub Company puts behind both lines.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Meat Candy healthier than biltong, or is biltong healthier than Meat Candy?
Biltong has no added sugar and is gluten-free and soy-free, while Meat Candy contains brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, corn syrup, wheat, and soy through its sauce and smoke flavor stack. If added sugar, gluten, or soy are what you're watching, biltong is the leaner option. If you want a sweeter, smokier snack and aren't tracking those ingredients, Meat Candy isn't unhealthy, it's just built around a different flavor profile with a different ingredient list.
Does Meat Candy taste like regular jerky?
Meat Candy is Grub Company's own beef jerky, sweet, smoky, and cooked with a real BBQ sauce base, so yes, it's a proper jerky in the traditional sense, just built with a nostalgic, playful flavor direction. It isn't trying to imitate biltong's clean, air-dried style, it's a different product entirely with its own two flavors, Hickory Kickory Dock and Baa-Baa BBQ Sheep.
Why does biltong have a firmer texture than Meat Candy?
Biltong is air-dried and vinegar-cured, never cooked, which produces a firmer, drier chew. Meat Candy is cooked and smoked with a sauce coating, which keeps the beef more tender and gives it a sticky, caramelized surface. The texture difference comes directly from the two different processes, not from different cuts of beef.
Are both Meat Candy and biltong kosher?
Yes. Meat Candy is Certified Glatt Kosher by Harav Weissmandl and Aleph K, and biltong carries the same Glatt Kosher certification. Both lines meet the same kosher standard, they just get there through different processes, sauce-and-smoke for Meat Candy, air-dry-and-cure for biltong.
Which is better for a kid's lunchbox, Meat Candy or biltong?
Meat Candy is generally the easier sell for kids because of its sweeter, smokier flavor and softer, more approachable texture. Biltong's firmer, unsweetened chew tends to land better with adults who already like a leaner, more traditional snack. Neither is wrong for a lunchbox, it depends on what flavor your kid already likes.
Can I buy both Meat Candy and biltong from Grub Company?
Yes, both lines are sold separately by Grub Company, Meat Candy in Hickory Kickory Dock and Baa-Baa BBQ Sheep flavors at $7.99 for a 2oz bag, and biltong as its own product line. Buying both is a reasonable way to cover two different snacking occasions instead of treating one as a replacement for the other.
