Meat giant Tyson Foods has sold its Golden Island Jerky business to meat snacks specialist Jack Link’s.

The disposal also means the closure of Tyson Foods’ production plant in Rancho Cucamonga, California, and the loss of 371 jobs, according to media reports. 

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A spokesperson for Jack Link’s confirmed the purchase, although Tyson Foods had not responded to a request for comment by just-food at the time of writing.
 
“We will be integrating Golden Island production into our Alpena, South Dakota production facility, the largest and most state of the art jerky facility in the world,” the spokesperson said. “We anticipate hiring additional team members at our Alpena facility and all former Tyson employees from the Rancho Cucamonga plant are welcome to apply for positions at our South Dakota plant or any of our other three Midwest-based facilities.”

Golden Island produces “gourmet varieties” of jerky using a “proprietary cooking and marinating process to kettle cook its beef and flame-grill its pork jerky in small batches”, according to the spokesperson, adding that Jack Link’s will maintain the Golden Island brand.

Hillshire Brands acquired the Golden Island business in 2013 before Tyson Foods snapped up the former in a 2014 deal

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