By Donwynne and Amy Bergh
It takes 230g of raw beef to make 100g of our biltong, plus days of air-drying, so the price follows the beef that goes in. Our beef sticks use 220g of raw beef for every 100g. That is the simple reason biltong sits above a bag of crisps, and it's also why a small pack is a proper portion of meat.
Why does so much beef go into a small pack?
Biltong is beef with most of the water dried out. As the meat hangs and dries, it loses moisture and shrinks. What you're left with is concentrated beef, spice and time.
A 35g pack of our biltong is made from about 80g of raw beef. That's worth knowing when you compare it with other snacks by pack size alone. You're not buying a 35g nibble of something light. You're buying a portion of meat that started out much larger.
What else takes time?
The method is slow on purpose. Our beef is marinated overnight in apple cider vinegar and our spice blend, then air-dried for about a week, then rested. There's no shortcut that still makes biltong we would be happy to put our name on.
Our recipes are made in the UK by our specialist production partner, to our recipe and our spice specifications. The time is built in, whether we like it or not.
Does the kind of beef change the price?
It does. All our beef is 100% pasture-fed British beef, from Farm Wilder farms across South West England. Farm Wilder audits those farms every two years against standards developed with FWAG South West.
That beef costs more than commodity meat, and we think it's the right place to spend the money. Biltong is mostly beef, so the quality of it shows. There's more on the sourcing on Our Beef, and on what your order supports.
So what am I paying for in an Inyama pack?
A 6-pack is £24.99 and a 12-pack is £44.99. Delivery is free on orders from £65. In each pack you're getting:
- 100% pasture-fed British beef, traced back to Farm Wilder farms
- a traditional cure of vinegar, salt and spices, air-dried slowly
- 53.7g of protein per 100g of biltong (about 18.8g in a 35g pack)
If you want to try the range before you stock up, The Whole Herd mixed 6-pack is £24.99. If a flavour is already a staple, a 12-pack of Original is the better value per pack, and Subscribe & Save on the 12-packs takes 15% off your first box, then 10% off every box after, delivered monthly, every 2 weeks or every 2 months. You can pause, skip or cancel anytime.
Is more expensive biltong always better?
No. Price isn't a guarantee. The useful questions are: how much beef went in, what else is in the ingredients list, and whether you can tell where the meat came from. We'd rather answer those plainly than tell you what to think.
If you ever want a closer look at a pack, or you're ordering for a shop, just give us a shout at hello@inyamabiltong.co.uk.