Little Town Jerky
Little Town Jerky Company was founded in 1994, but the idea for the business started several years earlier. In the mid 1980’s, Ebels General Store began offering smoked meats made by Mark Ebels. Mark quickly discovered that processing and curing smoked meats is an art, so he trained for months with the specialists at Max Bauer Meat Market in Traverse City. German Sausage expert Harvey Reichert also taught Mark about spices and the fine points of preparing different products. Customers responded enthusiastically, and began asking “where else can we buy your products?”
From that small beginning, Little Town Jerky became a reality. The United States Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) approved meat plant opened in 1994, with the focus primarily on the company’s jerky products. Over the years the product line has expanded to include everything from smoked picnic hams to cooked beef ribeye.
The plant was operating at capacity in 2007, so owners Mark & Dawn Ebels, along with their sons Tom & Bob, decided to expand the plant. In January 2007, ground was broke for a building for 2 new smokehouses, a room to fabricate ham products, additional cooler space, and also a new receiving area. After the addition was completed in the fall of 2007, the plant had much more capacity to cook and smoke products.
While getting away for a few days in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula in the spring of 2008, founder Mark’s son Tom saw a new business opportunity. Tom saw a need for a product line filled with savory choices to be distributed around Northern and Central Michigan. After researching the idea, it was decided to hire Rich Bennett as the company’s sales and marketing director (Rich also just happens to be the son-in-law of Mark & Dawn). Since the addition of a full time sales and marketing director, Little Town has seen very steady growth.
We would like to thank all of our associates that work so hard to produce quality products. We also would like to thank all of our great customers for putting their trust in our products.