Beef Jerky Stores in El Paso

By Claudia Flores

Pedro Gordillo, 27, local entrepreneur and CEO of El Viejon Ranch Style Beef Jerky, launched his business in July of last year. City Beat Magazine had the opportunity to meet with Gordillo via phone call to expand on the main idea behind his business and the company's compromise to provide quality products at an affordable price.

City Beat (CB): Can you tell me a little bit about your business? And how is it you started your business?

Pedro Gordillo (PG): Gladly. Well, you know, it all started with, with the idea of building a brand in honor of my grandfather. I'm a beef jerky lover myself and I would buy my beef jerky for many, many years from, from a guy that used to sell it in the northeast here in El Paso. One day, out of nowhere, he closed his shop down and I found myself wanting to buy beef jerky. So one day I just started playing with flavors, and I decided to buy my own dehydrator to make the beef jerky. And then that's how it all started. My grandfather is the logo of the brand. That is a picture of my grandfather that we were able to transcribe. But you know, it's just one of those things. It all started with me wanting to make my own beef jerky and here we are. We just launched the business not too long ago as a brand. We've been making beef jerky for a couple years now. But we didn't make a business out of it and we didn't build a brand. It wasn't until last year in 2020, when we decided to launch the brand and ever since we've been growing exponentially. A lot of people seem to like our product and that is what we decided to commit ourselves to provide the best tasting beef jerky

CB: Why is it you decided to open this business in honor of your grandfather?

PG: My grandfather, which is his name is Pedro Gordillo, but he's senior, he passed away two years ago, it was a matter of respect. He was a man of value. He was a man that was admired by many people. We were raised to be men of value, be providers and just bring value to people that surround us. We were raised in a family ranch, here in across the border and right here in San Elizario. So, we were raised around cattle, around horses, growing crops, crops like cotton, alfalfa, you know, you name it, right. So, I wanted to build a brand and company in honor of him because of that, you know, he deserves it! Right? And we want to make sure we build a legacy, so his name lasts forever.

CB: How is it that you decided to make him the logo?

PG: I was just playing with the logo at the time, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to name the company, but I knew that I wanted to be associated with the ranch style because that's what we do. We came up with it, I had the picture in my cell phone, I started editing the picture and adding some effects to it. And I came up with the black shade of, of the picture, and it looked so cool that I was like 'this is it!' Viejon is phrase that we use for respect to older men in Mexico. It's a matter of respect, somebody's got to respect it, not just anybody gets called Viejon, that's why we decided to name the company like that.

CB: What was that moment that made you want or decide to launch the brand?

PG: I've been a business owner entrepreneur for the past five to six years now. It all started back in 2015. I had a corporate job with Apple and back in time, I thought that was all I wanted to do. But later on, in life, I found out that I didn't like being told when to go out for lunch or a break. The fact that I had to ask for vacation and stuff like that. So that motivated me to want to become self-employed and become my own boss. We've had several businesses ventures these last few years, but this is what I do currently. I do our beef jerky company and I am an insurance broker as a full-time gig.

CB: And how has that changed suited you?

PG: It has impacted me a lot, you know, simply because I get to call my own shots. It's not easier, you know, the life of an entrepreneur will never be easier. But you know, when you have the freedom of your time, you have the freedom of choice.

CB: Can you take me through the process of how you guys make the beef jerky for those of us who buy it, and don't know a lot about the process?

PG: Absolutely. We have our butcher of choice that we have from a locally owned store here in El Paso. We pride ourselves in providing good quality meats, USDA prime, USDA choice type of meat and we have the butcher that has the perfect cut, because beef jerky, it's either too thin or too thick. Some people like it chewy, some people like it crispy, so I believe we have a sweet spot. We are traditional Carne-seca, that's the type of solid beef jerky that we like to make. The whole process in the marinating can take anything between 12 hours all the way to 48 hours just in the marinate process. We have three flavors, original salt, and pepper, then we have a recipe, which is a trifecta of roasted green shielded from hatch. And we have our picosat, which is a fusion of habanero, serrano and arbol peppers combined. And as we speak right now, we are working in a brand-new flavor that I will not disclose yet. Of course, it will be coming very soon.

CB: For you, as a local business owner, how important is to consume from local butchers and local companies that can provide you and your company with the best meat?

PG: It's crucial, because we have to support local and I pride myself on that, I feel that there's so much talent in El Paso. There are so many great artists, great business owners, entrepreneurs, and what better way to support someone than just to support local, right. Let's support each other. We're all starting from scratch and that's the best possible way to help each other, by supporting local businesses, instead of supporting bigger, more established brands. That's the best way to do it

CB: Changing a bit on topic, how has the pandemic impacted the business?

PG: it limits the ability for us to distribute the product, but with anything, you know, we have to adapt and overcome, right. So, what we we've been able to do is operating through the farmers markets here locally, we are considered essential. We just must overcome and adapt. Right now, social media is one of the best platforms to be able to distribute our products, just direct to consumer we have a lot of local deliveries. So we've been following the social distancing guidelines, every single protocol, we've been on top of it. And that's what we've been able to adapt. But of course, I can definitely testify that COVID-19 has affected a lot of business owners, not only locally but worldwide. So it's very unfortunate.

CB: Do you guys have any plans to actually taking the step of taking your product and your business over to Mexico?

PG: That is part of our vision to be able to not only distribute our products here in the United States, but also go worldwide. We are proud Mexicans, right. So we want to make sure that we establish our product in Mexico, we believe that there's a huge potential, there's a huge upside. Because not only you know, beef jerky is a popular product, a lot of people like beef jerky, but we really pride ourselves that we have a great product. It's a quality product. We put a lot of time into it. We're not just trying to make a quick buck. I personally love beef jerky, which is why I started this, but we pride ourselves in providing the best tasting beef jerky somebody could possibly try. Of course, it's subjective, flavor and taste. But so far, the response of the people has been great. And we truly value and appreciate that.

CB: Where do you see the company in five years?

PG: When I commit to something I decide to go all in, there's not halfway in anything we do in life, I truly believe that we got to commit 100% to it.

You got to make sure you give it your all-in order for something to work, whether it's your fitness, whether it's your relationships, whether it's business, whatever it is, you got to make sure you commit to it. We see the brand going national and establishing ourselves as one of the most popular beef jerky brands out there. We're not playing small, we don't want to compete with our local competitors, even though they have great products, they have great features as well. But we want to play big, right, we're here to, we're here to take over at the end of the day. We see ourselves playing at a national league and a big being in every big box store. You name it, Walmart, Sam's Costco, and we every single gas station and I truly believe that our product has a potential to achieve that. Because it's a great product, you know, it has great flavor. There's always a chance, everybody has an opportunity. We definitely see ourselves playing big within the next five years.

CB: What advice would you give young entrepreneurs those who want to take the risk, but they're afraid to take the step? What advice would you give them?

PG: If there's a goal, there's a dream, or something that we want to achieve in life, we have to chase it, right. By no means I've made it yet, but I have gained so much experience throughout these years. I'm 27 years old right now going on 28 and the experience that I've gained so far, simply by taking risks, and having faith in whatever it is that you believe in, we got to have faith. And you got to trust the process, but during that process, we got to make sure we put in the work, because; without the work, there's no reward. We have to make sure we're consistent or disciplined. We got to make sure we built the right habits, because once we build the right habits, everything else pretty much falls into place.

For more information on El Viejon Ranch Style Beef Jerky visit their Instagram and Facebook page at @elviejonbeefjerkey

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Source: https://applepolishing.media/2021/01/24/el-viejon-ranch-style-beef-jerky-continues-growing-amid-pandemic/

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