MINNEAPOLIS-- Move over Apple Store. Jack Link’s has opened a retail store in Minneapolis called Jack Link’s Wild Side, where fans can purchase meat snacks, sample potential new jerky styles and flavors, and buy a range of jerky-related accessories.
Located in the renovated Target Center, the retail shop is regarded as “an official clubhouse where (fans) can connect with the brand in a personal way,” said Jack Link’s CEO Troy Link. “The store is part tribute to the traditions that got us to where we are today and the innovations that will take us into the future. It’s a place where fans can experience hands on all the wild and wonderful elements our brand has to offer.”
In addition to selecting from an array of meat snacks, the Minong, Wis.-based company built the store so patrons can shop for a variety of items, including T-shirts, camouflage hat-and-mitten sets and fleece Sasquatch pants.
Because Sasquatch is an iconic part of the Jack Link’s brand, store guests and passers-by are “invited to venture around the bend from the Wild Side store into a sun-dappled woodland clearing, where they will be greeted by an eerily lifelike, 7-foot chainsaw-carved likeness of the mythical creature,” according to the company. There, they can snap a #sasquatchselfie to share with friends and family.
The Jack Link’s Wild Side experience is more than an opportunity to merchandise North Woods-themed goods, according to the company. It will also serve as a laboratory for the launch of new products. In 2018, meat aficionados will be able to sample fresh-from-the-smoker jerky in experimental new flavors, hand-carried from a state-of-the-art innovation center at Jack Link’s new Minneapolis office space, which is a stone’s throw from the new retail store.
Positioning the Wild Side store in close proximity to the innovation center allows the brand team to receive instantaneous feedback on new jerky offerings, said TD Dixon, chief marketing officer for Jack Link’s.
“This is the most direct way for us to react to trending tastes and new product forms in real time,” said Dixon.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.