The Gen XY Lifestyle

The Happy Moo is the world’s first commercial shaker jerky producer

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The Happy Moo produces a guilt free beef jerky snack with no fat, no carbs, and no MSG.

The Happy Moo launched as an outcome of its founder, Andrew Lim, an underwater photographer, discovering that it was not easy to find beef jerky in Singapore.

As a professional diver and an underwater photographer, the pandemic impacted his ability to travel as well as affected his requirement to stay healthy. Andrew recognised that he was staying home more, moving less and gaining weight due to pandemic restrictions.

Andrew’s journey in searching for healthy snacks led to his insight that the perfect snack is beef jerky, and that beef jerky is not easy to find in Singapore. This led him to start The Happy Moo and to provide his ideal healthy snack.

According to The Happy Moo, the shaker jerky takes over 17 hours of preparation time, is hand-crafted and marinated for over 12 hours in a concoction of all-natural herbs and spices, before being slow cooked to tender perfection. A single bag of jerky (100g) is made from around 230g of beef.

There are currently three flavours – Mala, Lemon Ponzu and Truffle – available. Each beef jerky pack comes with a separate pack of premium, all-natural seasoning, directly flown in from Europe and Japan. Customers can pour in the seasoning, and shake the packet. A pack is priced at SGD 17 and there is a bundle deal for SGD 45.

We discussed the The Happy Moo, and his concept of a shaker jerky, as well as future plans with Andrew.

the Active Age (AA): Can you expand on the background and inspiration for The Happy Moo?

Andrew Lim (AL): Being a professional underwater photographer, I’m always travelling and leading a very active lifestyle. However, because of COVID-19, I find myself not moving around much and the worst thing is, I snack, A LOT. I started trying to find a healthier snack which would satisfy me – one that has a bite to it, and doesn’t compromise on flavours…of which I couldn’t find any.

Jerky was then my only option left. However, I dislike the jerky available in Singapore. It is of low quality, overly processed, and the range of flavours are all the same boring ones – black pepper, original, and teriyaki.

Therefore I tried making my own and to my surprise, it tasted way better than the store-bought ones. From there, I did a lot of R&D to perfect the recipe.

Friends who came over to my place loved it and wanted to buy it and from there, I saw the potential of creating a jerky market in Singapore. I say ‘creating’ because Singapore does not have a strong jerky culture at all, and that is what I want to change.

As for my branding with the cartoon cow? Well, jerky has always been labeled as a “man’s food” with overly masculine designs across all the other brands. Again, I want to create a new market here – I want to change people’s perspective of jerky. It doesn’t have to taste so processed and tough. Although dry, it can be tender. The Happy Moo is for everyone – men, women, the young and the old.

AA: Why did you decide to pick beef and specifically beef jerky to fulfil your mission? And what is the appeal of beef compared to other types of proteins.

AL: Late at night when the serial snacker in me comes knocking at my door, I always crave something strong. Like a solid piece of meat. But again, like many others out there (I’m sure), you don’t want to be prepping, cooking, and cleaning at 1am in the morning.

How nice would it be if you could just open a bag of tender chunks of beef and snack on it while binging on Netflix?

Each bag of The Happy Moo’s Shaker Jerky weighs 100g. It takes 230g of meat to make that, because it shrinks during the drying processes. So finishing one bag of The Happy Moo is as good as eating one whole piece of steak!

The Happy Moo

AA: How did you come up with the flavours?

AL: I mean it when I say I’m a serial snacker. You’d find a whole assortment of different flavoured snacks in my room, well, because you never know what you are going to crave for at any one time. You might feel like having truffle for a while and 30 minutes later, something lighter, or even tangy.

This is the same for The Happy Moo’s Shaker Jerky.

I want to be able to satisfy my customers’ cravings for different occasions. We’ve got truffle for the people with heavy taste buds, mala for those who love spice, and lemon ponzu for those who love a good balance of flavours when the zest cuts right through the savouriness of the jerky.

And everything is customizable because each bag contains the same original flavoured jerky. Just add in the sachet of the flavoured seasoning, give it a good shake, and it turns into something else altogether. Don’t like too much spice? Just add a tinge of the mala seasoning.

Also, go Google truffle jerky, or lemon ponzu jerky. You’d not find any, except for us!

AA: What’s the calories and nutrient count for The Happy Moo beef jerky?

AL: Unfortunately, because we are only 3 months new, and still a small home-based business, we haven’t sent it for lab tests yet.

However, all the fat in the meat is trimmed off- we don’t want fat as it reduces the shelf-life of jerky drastically. We also remove all the gristle to ensure tenderness.

And, all our ingredients are natural with no MSG.

So yeah, no fat, no carbs, it’s as healthy a snack as it gets.

AA: What’s next for The Happy Moo?

AL: Flavours wise – we are looking to bring in 3 more! Rendang, tomyum, and… we are still thinking of the last one. As for the business, we are looking for opportunities to scale up!

The Happy Moo

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