Every bag of Don Pedro’s Kitchen jerky carries a recipe that’s older than most snack brands on the shelf. It didn’t start in a boardroom or a marketing meeting. It started in a small kitchen in La Puente, California, making authentic Mexican food the way families had for generations.
This is the story of how a local cecina-and-chorizo kitchen became the Latin-style jerky that long-haul drivers crossed state lines to buy.
A family kitchen with a local reputation
At the beginning of the century, our family bought a small company that made authentic Mexican foods out of a kitchen in La Puente. It was already known around the neighborhood for three things: its cecina, its chorizo, and its Latin-style jerky.
We didn’t set out to reinvent any of them. We set out to keep making them the right way — hand-sliced beef, hand-tied sausages wrapped in corn husks, salsas with roasted chiles, all made the way abuelita used to make them. Good ingredients, slow-cooked meats, no shortcuts.
The truck drivers who spread the word
Here’s the part we never could have planned. Long-haul truck drivers discovered our Latin jerky and made it part of their routine. They’d pull off the road, knock on the kitchen door, and buy a whole case to keep them company across the miles.
A 2 oz bag has the nutritional value of a half-pound steak, which made it the perfect road food — real fuel that didn’t need a cooler and didn’t quit after an hour like a candy snack would. The drivers knew good jerky when they tasted it, and they weren’t quiet about it.
Their secret didn’t stay secret. Word traveled the way it does among people who spend their lives on the highway, and before long we were shipping Latin jerky to families all over the country.
Growing without losing the recipe
Over the years we outgrew the original kitchen and moved to a slightly larger one in Covina, California. Today, 38 people make delicious Latin food there every single day. We’ve grown — but we stayed small-batch on purpose, because scaling up is easy and keeping quality is hard.
The people who visit our kitchen now are every kind of person you can imagine:
- Athletes who want a clean, no-sugar protein snack.
- Moms stocking up for their kids’ soccer teams.
- Soldiers who keep cases on base.
Different people, same reason: they want real jerky made by people who care how it’s made.
Why we still do it the old way
We make traditional-style jerky because we believe the old ways are the best ways. Our recipes are rooted in time-honored techniques — slow marinating, careful seasoning, and low-and-slow drying. These are the same methods families have used for generations to turn good beef into something that keeps, travels, and tastes like home.
That tradition is also why our ingredient list is so short. Beef, salt, pepper. When you make jerky the way it’s been made for generations, you don’t need sugar, nitrites, or fillers to hold it together. The method does the work.
As we say in our kitchen: “Merezca lo mejor — y gracias por hacernos parte de su familia.” You deserve the best, and thank you for making us part of your family.
Taste the jerky the truck drivers found first →
Don Pedro’s Kitchen is a family-run maker of Latin-style jerky in Covina, California — made the old way, with clean ingredients and no sugar.