Slim Jim is an American meat snack brand sold globally and manufactured by Conagra Brands.[1] Slim Jim snacks are widely available and popular in the United States, generating $575 million in revenue in 2015.[2] About 1 billion Slim Jim snacks are produced annually in at least 21 varieties.[3]
History
Al Levis and his partner Joseph Cherry invented the first Slim Jim in 1929 in Philadelphia. In the 1940s they hired a meatpacker to develop the product for production.[4] In 1967 he sold the company for about $20 million to General Mills,[4] which moved the operations to Raleigh, North Carolina, and merged them into the meatpacking operations of their recently acquired Jesse Jones Sausage Co. to create Goodmark Foods.[5] Ron Doggett moved to Raleigh in 1969 as he was named corporate controller of the newly formed entity, and was later the company's Vice President of Finance.[5] In 1982, General Mills put the company up for sale, and Doggett and three other GoodMark executives acquired the company; Doggett assumed the offices of president and chief operating officer.[5]Conagra bought Goodmark in 1998.[6] Until 2009, the former Jones Sausage plant in Garner, North Carolina was the only facility in the world which produced Slim Jims.[7][8]
The product Levis created is different from the one produced since the 1990s, with Lon Adams (1925–2020)[9] developing the current Slim Jim recipe while working for Goodmark.[10]
Production was interrupted after an explosion and fire on June 9, 2009 heavily damaged the plant in Garner, killing three workers and a subcontractor worker.[11] Conagra reopened the plant six weeks after the incident.[12] Since it could only produce at about half of its original capacity, ConAgra arranged for other facilities to produce Slim Jims[7] including a facility in Troy, Ohio. On May 20, 2011, the facility in Garner closed, the same day that the company's former spokesman "Macho Man" Randy Savage died.[13]
Advertising campaigns
The advertising campaign was developed at North Castle Partners in Greenwich, Connecticut, by Tom Leland and Roger Martensen, under the creative direction of Hal Rosen. The "Snap into a Slim Jim!" concept was originally intended for comedian Sam Kinison, but his legal team didn't permit it.[14] Hal Rosen then suggested using WWF (now WWE) wrestlers, and The Ultimate Warrior was selected for the kickoff spot. In addition to a TV spot, The Ultimate Warrior also recorded several radio commercials for Slim Jim in 1991.[15]
From 1993 to 2000, advertising for the product heavily featured professional wrestler"Macho Man" Randy Savage, who served as spokesperson. Each commercial would close with Savage bellowing "Need a little excitement? Snap into a Slim Jim!". The campaign not only boosted overall sales but also raised Slim Jim’s profile among teenage male consumers, a demographic that remains at the heart of its following to this day.[15] Other notable commercials have included rapper Vanilla Ice and wrestlers Bam Bam Bigelow, Kevin Nash, Edge and recently Bianca Belair and LA Knight.[16]
A subsequent campaign featured Slim Jim Guy (played by actor Demetri Goritsas[17]), a human personification of a Slim Jim who would wreak havoc on the digestive system of anyone who ate it and used the slogan "Eat me!" These ads personified the irreverent personality of the brand and were also from North Castle Partners. He also appears as unlockable character in the video game Dave Mirra's Freeestyle BMX 2.
Slim Jim advertisements were also heavily featured on MTV, ESPN, WWF (now WWE), and WCW. Slim Jim was one of the earliest sponsors of the ASA Pro Tour (the aggressive inline skating tour) from 1997 to 2000.[18] The ASA Pro Tour was a qualifier for ESPN's X Games.
In 2005, Slim Jim advertising featured the Fairy Snapmother, described in a Conagra press release as "a character resembling a tattooed rocker with wings – and a familiar MTV-type of humor young males enjoy."[19]
Another campaign depicted hunters hunting a fictitious "Snapalope" within convenience stores using urban camouflage. The Snapalope is a deer-like puppet made from Slim Jims.
In 2008, Slim Jim launched the website "SpicySide.com", encouraging consumers to get in touch with their "Spicy Side" by creating an avatar and fighting their friends in an online landscape called Spicy Town. Slim Jim also partnered with a well known Machinima artist Myndflame to develop a World of Warcraft parody.
As of 2012, the company uses social media as a method of advertisement, using internet humour and memes to gain popularity online, creating an unofficial slogan of “Long Boi Gang” (referring to the snack itself). The Slim Jim account frequently comments on popular Instagram meme pages, and has gained a fair amount of popularity through this alone.[citation needed]
A 2009 Wired article listed some of the ingredients as beef, mechanically separated chicken, lactic acid starter culture, dextrose, salt, sodium nitrite, and hydrolyzed soy.[20] They note that although Conagra refers to Slim Jim as a "meat stick", it resembles a fermented sausage, such as salami or pepperoni, which uses bacteria and sugar to produce lactic acid, lowering the pH of the sausage to around 5.0 and firming up the meat.[20]
Slim Jim has launched several spin-off products of its main brand. These products are often of higher quality than the original Slim Jim, using premium meats.[citation needed] Such products include both tender steak strips and beef jerky.[citation needed]
The tender steak strips come in three flavors. Its companion beef jerky comes in four flavors: an original flavor, two spicy flavors, and one smokin' apple flavor.[21]
^Staff, JournalNow (24 November 2009). "4th victim of blast at Slim Jim plant dies". Winston-Salem Journal. Archived from the original on 2021-05-21. Retrieved 2021-05-21. A fourth person has died from injuries suffered in a natural-gas explosion that tore through a North Carolina Slim Jim plant five months ago, a hospital spokesman said yesterday. Curtis Ray Poppe, 55, worked for Energy Systems Analysts Inc., and hired to install a water heater at the plant, died Thursday at the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center in Chapel Hill, spokesman Tom Hughes said.
