If you've ever grabbed a bag of jerky from a gas station and wondered why it tastes more like teriyaki sauce than actual beef, you've already sensed the problem. Biltong and jerky aren't two versions of the same thing. They're fundamentally different products, made with different intentions, from different traditions, for different eaters.
Here's what actually separates them, and why the difference matters more than most people realize.
What Actually Is Biltong?
Biltong's roots trace back to 17th-century South Africa, where Dutch settlers at the Cape combined European vinegar-curing traditions with drying techniques the indigenous Khoikhoi had practiced for centuries. Thick cuts of meat were rubbed with coarse salt, vinegar, and coriander, then hung to dry in the open air for several days. Two hundred years later, the Voortrekkers carried biltong on the Great Trek across the interior, relying on it to survive months-long journeys by ox-wagon. The recipe they refined is essentially the biltong made today. The word itself comes from the Dutch "bil" (rump) and "tong" (strip), which describes the cut.
What they created wasn't a snack by accident. It was food engineered to survive weeks without refrigeration while retaining nutrition, flavor, and a texture that still resembles the original steak. Traditional biltong uses four ingredients: beef, vinegar, salt, and coriander. Nothing else is required.
In South Africa and the UK, biltong is as common as potato chips. In the United States, it's still earning its place, but that's changing fast, driven by carnivore dieters, clean eaters, and anyone who's looked at a jerky ingredient label and felt suspicious about what they were reading.
What Is Beef Jerky, Really?
Jerky's history is equally legitimate. The name comes from "ch'arki," a Quechua word from the indigenous peoples of South America who preserved meat by salting and drying it centuries before European contact. That original technique was simple, clean, and effective.
Modern commercial jerky is something different. The basic process involves slicing meat thin, marinating it in a heavily seasoned liquid, and dehydrating it at temperatures between 160 and 175 degrees Fahrenheit over a few hours. That heat is fast, industrial, and thorough. It cooks the meat completely, which drives off moisture, alters the protein structure, and strips out much of the natural fat content.
To compensate for flavor lost during that process, commercial manufacturers add it back. A standard ingredient list for a major jerky brand might include sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, sodium nitrite, soy sauce, artificial smoke flavoring, modified food starch, MSG, and vegetable oils. For someone watching carbohydrates or avoiding industrial additives, that list is a dealbreaker. A single serving of many commercial jerkies contains 6 to 9 grams of sugar, which is more than some protein bars.
Experienced biltong producers put it plainly: most commercial jerky is clean meat stripped of its character, then coated in a sugar glaze to make it palatable.
Biltong vs Jerky: 6 Differences That Actually Matter
1. How Each One Is Made
This is the core distinction. Everything else follows from it.
Biltong is air-dried at ambient temperatures, typically between 68 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit, over three to seven days depending on thickness and desired texture. The meat is first marinated in vinegar (apple cider or red wine vinegar are traditional), then coated in salt, coriander, and pepper. It hangs in a ventilated drying environment while moisture slowly leaves the meat.
Jerky is dehydrated at high heat (160 to 175 degrees Fahrenheit) for four to eight hours. That's a fundamentally different process. High heat denatures proteins, drives off fat alongside moisture, and produces the characteristically lean, uniform texture jerky is known for. It's fast and commercially efficient, but it changes what the meat actually is.
Biltong, by contrast, is closer to a cured meat than a cooked one, sharing preservation logic with Italian bresaola or Spanish cecina.
2. The Ingredient List
This comparison is the most straightforward argument for biltong, and the numbers make it concrete.
| Ingredient | Quality Biltong | Commercial Beef Jerky |
|---|---|---|
| Beef | Yes (whole muscle) | Yes (often lean trim) |
| Vinegar (apple cider) | Yes | Rarely |
| Salt | Yes | Yes |
| Coriander / Spices | Yes | Varies |
| Sugar / HFCS | No | Often 6-9g per serving |
| Sodium Nitrite | No | Commonly present |
| Artificial Smoke Flavoring | No | Often present |
| Soy Sauce / Soy Derivatives | No | Commonly present |
| Seed Oils | No | Sometimes present |
Producers who make biltong the traditional way point out that the vinegar cure and salt are doing all the preservation work. There's no functional need for nitrites, stabilizers, or artificial flavoring, and traditional biltong has been made this way for centuries without them.
3. Cut, Thickness, and Texture
Most commercial jerky is cut against the grain in thin strips, which breaks up muscle fibers and makes the final product easy to chew but also uniform in texture. Every bite is the same leathery pull.
Biltong is typically cut with the grain in thick slabs, then air-dried slowly. Because moisture leaves the meat gradually over days rather than hours, the muscle fiber structure stays more intact. The result can range from a moist, almost rare-center texture (called "wet biltong") to a firmer, well-dried product depending on how long it dries. Customers trying biltong for the first time often notice immediately that it's softer, fattier, and more complex than jerky. The experience is closer to slicing into a marbled steak than eating a processed strip.
That variance reflects actual beef rather than a standardized industrial output.
4. Nutrition: Sugar, Fat, and What the Numbers Actually Mean
Here's the side-by-side comparison, based on approximate values per one-ounce (28g) serving:
| Nutrient | Farmer Bill's Biltong | Commercial Beef Jerky |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 0g | 6-8g |
| Fat | 4.5g | 1-3g |
| Protein | 16g | 10g |
| Calories | 110 | 70-80 |
Biltong comes out ahead on protein per ounce, and the differences in sugar and fat tell the same story: what's in the meat comes from the meat, not from additives or a processing technique that strips the meat down and rebuilds flavor with sweeteners.
Sugar is the most consequential difference. Commercial jerky typically runs 6 to 8 grams of sugar per serving, which is more than some protein bars and a meaningful consideration for anyone managing blood glucose. Biltong, cured with vinegar and salt rather than a sweetened marinade, has zero. For carnivore eaters, keto dieters, diabetics, and anyone tracking carbohydrate intake, that gap is the whole argument.
Fat is the second. Commercial jerky is lean by design: the high-heat dehydration process drives off fat alongside moisture, which is why most commercial brands advertise "low fat" on the label. Biltong, air-dried at ambient temperatures, retains the natural fat that was on the original cut of beef. That's why Farmer Bill's biltong has 4.5g of fat per serving rather than 1 to 3. For carnivore and keto eaters specifically, the fat isn't a drawback. Saturated fat from well-raised beef, delivered alongside protein in the ratio nature put it in, is the point of the product.
The calorie difference (110 vs 70-80) comes from biltong's higher protein and retained fat. Energy density is higher because the product is closer to whole beef than to the lean, desiccated protein strip that commercial jerky is engineered to be.
5. Flavor: Beef-Forward vs Marinade-Forward
Quality biltong tastes like beef. The coriander, salt, and pepper are there to highlight the meat, not cover it. Experienced makers compare the spicing philosophy to seasoning a steak with rosemary and salt: the spices are present, but they're working with the beef flavor, not over it.
Most commercial jerky tastes primarily like its marinade. Teriyaki, sweet hickory smoke, honey glazes. These aren't beef flavors. They're added flavors designed to compensate for a product made from lean, commodity-grade beef that doesn't have much character on its own.
The signal is simple: if a meat snack tastes more like its sauce than its protein, the product is telling you something about the quality of what's underneath.
6. Where the Beef Comes From
This is where most biltong vs jerky comparisons stop short, and it's one of the most important differences for anyone who cares about what they're actually eating.
Commercial jerky is overwhelmingly made from industrial beef sourced for leanness and price. The ultra-processed approach requires lean, uniform cuts because high heat drives off fat and flavor regardless. There's no incentive to start with premium beef if the process is going to strip it down anyway.
Biltong's air-drying process, done correctly, is completely different. Because the meat isn't cooked, the quality of the original beef expresses itself fully in the final product. Well-raised, properly marbled beef from pasture-raised cattle is what separates good biltong from average biltong. There's nowhere to hide a poor cut in an uncooked product.
Farmer Bill's makes their biltong from American beef raised on American land. That specificity matters. For an audience that's already made choices about sourcing, traceability, and rejecting industrial food systems, knowing where every ingredient comes from is part of the product. Even the vinegar and spices are sourced domestically where possible, because the same skepticism about industrial beef applies down the ingredient list.
Is Biltong Safe to Eat?
This question comes up because biltong isn't cooked in the traditional sense, and that distinction confuses people.
Biltong is neither raw nor cooked. It's cured and air-dried. The combination of vinegar (acetic acid lowers the pH of the meat, creating a hostile environment for bacterial growth), salt (draws out moisture and inhibits microbial activity), and controlled drying produces a shelf-stable product without applying heat. This is exactly the same preservation logic behind Italian prosciutto, bresaola, and Spanish jamón ibérico. Those products aren't cooked either, and they're considered among the most refined meat products in the world.
Biltong produced under proper conditions with correct salt ratios, adequate vinegar marination, and sufficient drying time is food-safe and shelf-stable. The science has been understood for centuries.
Is Biltong Legal in the United States?
Yes. Biltong made from domestically produced American beef is fully legal and subject to standard USDA meat processing regulations, no different from any other domestic meat product.
The confusion comes from imported biltong. Historically, USDA restrictions have made it difficult to import traditionally made South African biltong because of different processing and inspection standards. That's the reason biltong took so long to gain a foothold in the American market.
American-made biltong sidesteps that entirely. It's produced domestically, from domestic beef, under domestic regulations. There are no special import complications. For the consumer, buying American-made biltong also means fresher product, shorter supply chains, and the ability to verify exactly where the beef came from.
What Do Americans Call Biltong?
Until recently, most Americans who encountered biltong called it "dried beef," "air-dried meat," or incorrectly grouped it with jerky. That's starting to shift.
As the carnivore diet movement, clean eating communities, and premium snack culture have grown, "biltong" has become its own recognizable category in specialty grocery and direct-to-consumer food brands. Consumers who've made the switch tend not to go back. Once the difference in ingredient quality and texture registers, the standard commercial jerky experience stops being satisfying.
The American biltong market is still early. That's actually an advantage for consumers right now: the brands entering this space are doing so because they believe in the product, not because they're following a mass-market trend.
So Which One Wins?
The honest answer: they don't belong in the same category. Jerky, at its commercial peak, is a convenient, heavily processed snack built around shelf life, sweetness, and mass production. There's a market for that, and it's enormous.
Biltong is preserved beef in its most direct form: whole-muscle cuts, cured with vinegar and salt, dried slowly over days, with nothing added to compensate for shortcuts that were never taken. Zero sugar, natural fat retained from the original cut, and an ingredient list you don't need a chemistry background to read.
For anyone who wants a meat snack that actually tastes like the beef it came from, the comparison ends there.
At Farmer Bill's Provisions, every bag of biltong starts with American beef and four real ingredients. No sugar, no seed oils, no preservatives. If you want to see what biltong is supposed to taste like, the best sellers are a good place to start.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is biltong cooked or raw?
Biltong is neither cooked nor raw in the traditional sense. It is cured and air-dried using a combination of vinegar, salt, and controlled airflow over several days. The acetic acid in vinegar lowers the meat's pH, inhibiting bacterial growth without heat. This is the same preservation method used for cured meats like bresaola and prosciutto.
What do Americans call biltong?
Most Americans unfamiliar with biltong refer to it as "dried beef," "air-dried meat," or incorrectly call it jerky. As the premium snack and carnivore diet markets have grown, "biltong" is increasingly recognized as its own distinct category in the United States, separate from traditional jerky.
Is biltong legal in the US?
Yes. Biltong made from domestically produced American beef is fully legal in the United States and is regulated like any other domestic meat product under USDA guidelines. Imported biltong from South Africa has historically faced USDA restrictions, but American-made biltong has no such complications.
Is beef jerky ok for people with diabetes?
Commercial beef jerky often contains 6 to 9 grams of sugar per serving, which can be a meaningful concern for people managing blood glucose levels. Biltong typically contains less than 1 gram of sugar per serving, making it a more appropriate choice for those monitoring their carbohydrate intake. Anyone managing a medical condition should consult their healthcare provider before making dietary changes.
Is biltong healthier than beef jerky?
The answer depends on what you're measuring. Biltong is higher in protein per ounce (around 16g versus roughly 10g for most jerky). The meaningful differences are zero sugar in biltong versus 6 to 8 grams in most commercial jerky, higher natural fat retention in biltong (approximately 4 to 5g vs 1 to 3g), and no artificial preservatives, MSG, or seed oils on the biltong side. For low-carb, carnivore, and keto eaters the higher fat is a feature rather than a drawback. Whether it's "healthier" depends on dietary goals, but the ingredient quality gap is substantial.
Why does biltong cost more than jerky?
Biltong requires higher-quality whole-muscle cuts, a longer production process (minimum seven days of air-drying versus a few hours for jerky), and no filler ingredients to stretch the product. The price reflects the actual cost of making real preserved beef rather than an industrial snack. Most people who try quality biltong find the difference in taste and nutrition justifies the price.