Country Archer Meat Snacks
Pros
- Clean Ingredients
- Value
- Grass-Fed
- No Antibiotics
Cons
- Need more flavor
Overview of Country Archer Meat Snacks
Meat snacks will always have a place in the convenience factors of our hearts. These include jerky, sticks and now meat bars...yes bars. Country Archer is a major player in this space making a name for themselves by their ingredient selection and massive portfolio.
Country Archer's #1 thing that we love is their sourcing of ingredients. They use grass-fed beef and turkey raised without antibiotics or hormones. Their flavoring could be stronger as some of them were faint, but texture and profiles were solid. In this day and age where we turn to protein bars that are much-like candy bars, look to real, whole food jerky, sticks and meat bars from Country Archer.
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Testing Results and Ratings
We reviewed the Country Archer Mean Snacks on four categories. We first start by looking at it’s ingredient profile. This portion of the review looks at the different ingredients used in the products.
Then we move into the taste of the different flavors we’ve tried. We grade each flavor separately and average the scores for their overall taste rating.
Texture refers to how well the snacks felt while eating it. Some meat snacks are chewy and hard in texture, while others are soft and moist.
Finally, we talk about value. Value is the combination of ingredients, taste and texture in relation to cost. Another part of value are the competitors and other versions of protein snacks on the market.
Ingredients Profile
With meat snack products, you’re always, ALWAYS going to have high sodium content as it is needed to help dry out the meat and preserve it for shelf stability. So let’s not focus on that because it’s a given with these.
As I mentioned in the overview section, the sourcing of the ingredients is what really separates these products. The beef is grass-fed, a must in today’s over processed world. The turkey is all raised without the use of antibiotics and hormones. With meat being the main ingredient, these MUST be clean, sourced ingredients. And they are.
The macros are also important. The nice thing is with grass fed meat, fat content isn’t as concerning since it will contain healthy omegas from the grass fed animal. With the line you get a variety of macros but most products are >10g protein per serving and around 1g of fat. This is a really clean label that we can all get on board with.
Overall, very impressed with the ingredients and the macros. The other ingredients used are for flavoring, which are clean as well. Most of these are organic and gluten free. This is a much better option than most protein bars on the market today.
Taste
Taste/Flavoring varies on what product you have. The jerky is the most flavorful where you can actually get a good taste of what the package is calling out whether it is teriyaki, hickory smoke or original. These flavors are all really good. I would rate the flavor on the jerky as a 9 out of 10.
The sticks and bars are lacking flavor in my opinion. Whether it is citrus or cayenne, it really doesn’t come through as strongly as the jerky. This could be because it is less “dried” and has some moisture to them? I am not quite sure but many of the flavors sound great, I just wish I had more of it when I took a bite. I would give the flavoring a 6 out of 10 on these just because there isn’t really much flavor at all.
My takeaway here is for CA to work on flavoring their sticks and bars. I have had competitor brands and their bars and sticks have more flavor and still a clean ingredient panel.
Texture
Texture is going to vary by product type. So I will break down all three here.
First the jerky. The beef variation has a much better texture than turkey. It is softer, and less chewy. It also is more moist which I enjoy. Turkey is a bit hard and much more chewy. Now, I have seen this on other brands too, so it may just be the use of turkey as the meat, but I am not a huge fan of the hard texture. I would give this an 8 overall with beef really pulling up the score.
Sticks and bars are similar. Once you get over the fact you’re eating meat in a bar form, these are moist, soft and not chewy. They are easy to eat. It is actually enjoyable to eat these. Some might think the bars are too soft, but to me these are ideal because if they were hard it would be so tough to chew.
Overall, texture is pretty solid across the line outside of the turkey jerky. Again, this may be an issue with a lot of meat snack companies.
Value
I like the value across the line. They are sourcing ingredients that cost a lot (grass fed anything isn’t cheap). The bars retail for less than $25 for 12-bars, cheaper than protein bars and cleaner while still posting 15g of protein. The sticks are a bit more expensive in the mid-$30s but you also get 24-sticks that post 9-10g protein per stick. The jerky is also reasonable at $3-$6 a package depending on size and meat, which is good when you compare it to gas station meat snacks.
If you’re looking for a nice alternative to protein bars, using real food and quality ingredients, this is a solid value for you.
Available at these Fitness Informant Approved Retailers
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Country Archer Meat Snacks
Pros
- Clean Ingredients
- Value
- Grass-Fed
- No Antibiotics
Cons
- Need more flavor
