The Azores

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Interview: How Tricia & Griff Alker Started a Beef Jerky Business in the Azores

A display of beef jerky products labeled "Azores Beef Jerky," with one package of pork jerky in the center. Each packet is paired with a bowl of jerky pieces. The setup is decorated with a festive red and green plaid border on a burlap cloth.

In this interview, Tricia Alker explains how she moved from the US to the island of Pico in the Azores. She talks about how they had initially planned to start another business within the seafood industry, but life had other plans and they ended up starting Azores Jerky, a beef jerky company. What motivated you to move from California to Pico island in the Azores? In 1998 my husband was asked by a colleague/friend in California to help in a …

There are places in the world that are genuinely, almost unreasonably beautiful — and then there’s the Azores, which manages to be both of those things while also sitting in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, three and a half hours from anywhere, in a region that gets more rainfall than Seattle and where the inside of your house can feel colder than the outside in January. That’s not a warning. It’s the beginning of an honest conversation. The Azores …