Looking Inward and Leaping Out:

Each of Anica Wu's recipes begins with memory — a scent or taste that transports her back to a specific time, place, or tradition. 

Wu is the owner, founder, and creative behind Bonjerk, an east Asian-inspired, responsibly sourced jerky company. 

"Immigrating from Hong Kong, China, to Kansas at the age of six, I spent my whole life trying to answer the question of where I belong. I often don't feel Chinese when I'm home in China, and I don't feel American here in the U.S.," says Wu. "Bonjerk has really been an inner journey — my own way of discovering for myself where it is that I belong." 

Wu arrived in the United States in '92 with her mother and sister, four years after her father, who had settled in Kansas City and worked in the restaurant industry. "I remember getting off the airplane, sitting in the car, and seeing snow falling all around. It was the first time I'd seen snow in my life," says Wu. "Everything was a huge culture shock, even more so for my parents than my sister and me since we were so young." 

While food and cooking were a constant throughout her life, from family gatherings and cultural traditions to her parents' work in the restaurant industry, it was an aspect of life that never felt front and center to Wu. "I grew up eating real Chinese food at home, but I didn't feel the pull to explore this part of my culture," she says. "I went through a phase where I wanted to be more "American," and I found Western-style food like chicken fingers, fries, and ice cream bars to be more interesting than the food I grew up around and was familiar with."

It wasn't until later when she began to realize the lack of access to quality meat in Chinese groceries, that she started thinking about how to bridge the gap between high-quality regenerative meat and her Chinese heritage. 

Wu's path to founding her own jerky company was both surprising and remarkably brave. After eight years in the commercial film industry, living a life controlled by her alarm clock, she felt in her gut that she needed to make a significant life change. 

"It's really kind of a funny story," laughs Wu. "It all started with this jerky that my friends and I were just obsessed with - to the extent that I would freeze it and savor it in small slivers. It was special because I couldn't remember the last time I had been that interested in a single food."

After researching the company, Wu was disappointed to discover that her favorite snack was not made from high-quality or fairly treated animals. "At the time, I had no knowledge about the meat industry," she says. "Growing up, we ate pretty healthily, focusing on meat and vegetables, but we never asked questions about where our meat came from."

At this moment, Wu took the first step toward what would become an all-consuming passion and career. Instead of trying to find a new jerky company whose product was just as satisfying but of higher quality, she was determined to try making jerky herself.

"I still remember feeling intimidated walking into the butcher shop for the first time," she says. "I relied on the guys behind the counter to tell me which meat to buy for my jerky recipes, and I walked out of there feeling embarrassed by my lack of knowledge in that space. I never wanted to feel that way again." That's when she signed up to take her first butchery class at the Fatted Calf — a local butcher shop in Napa, California. The workshop was called Pig + Woman + Knife, an all-women class taught by female butchers.

"This was my first time learning by and with a group of all women," says Wu. "I was in awe witnessing these badass women butchers breaking down whole animals, making charcuterie and sausages, and running the show at the shop." This class would begin her journey toward becoming a whole-animal butcher herself. 

While diving head first into butchering, Wu became interested in how the animals were raised and the implications of that on health, landscapes, climate, and the livelihoods of ranchers. Simultaneously, she was teaching herself how to make jerky by watching videos on YouTube and experimenting in her kitchen at home. 

"When I started experimenting with jerky recipes, the first flavor I tried to make was Pho," she says. "It was natural for me to focus on Asian recipes - many East Asian flavors from my childhood are so delicious, and I realized it was a missing niche in the jerky industry." 

For Wu, every new recipe starts with hours of experimenting, usually in her own kitchen, where she feels most in her element. She begins by making one recipe replica of the dish's flavors that inspired her. She tweaks that recipe with the second slice, adding her unique flare.  

In 2021, Wu officially opened Bonjerk - a jerky company with a larger vision of supporting small ranches so they can continue raising high-quality animals for the planet's longevity and consumers' health. 

Wu came up with the name Bonjerk as a play on the French word bonjour. 

"I'm in this business to create a high-value product," she says, referencing the stereotype that Chinese cuisine costs less than specialty foods from European and other cultures. "Chinese culture deserves a place in the high-end food space."

When she first told her parents about the idea for the name, they pronounced it phonetically as bang-jerk, which in Chinese means strong and resilient. Wu felt that sentiment was fitting for her new business. 

Bonjerk currently offers five products, though Wu hopes to expand that in the future. "All of my recipes hold a greater meaning for me," she says. Her Char Siu BBQ Pork is inspired by Char Siu Bao - a Chinese appetizer that brings back memories of gathering for tea on Sundays with her family. Her Black Garlic Beef recipe is a nod to the black bean noodle dish she would buy for lunch on the streets of Beijing while living in the city. 

Wu still does everything for her business on her own. It starts with an order of meat, which she then takes into the kitchen and trims, separating the meat that will be used for jerky, fat, and trim meat. "My goal is not to waste any part of the animal," she says. "I turn the fat into lard and make pork floss with the trim." Once the jerky meat is separated, she slices it and marinades it for a few days, dehydrates it, slices it, and packages it.

Wu has big dreams for the future of Bonjerk. "I'm already thinking 10-15 years down the road," she says. "I'd love to work directly with ranches and buy the whole animal, creating more meat products for the Asian market in addition to jerky and making them more accessible to the average consumer."

A big piece of her long-term mission is to help provide ranchers with some stability and help the industry from the ground up. "I have so much to learn, but I love being involved in the ranching aspect," says Wu. "I love having small conversations with people on the ground and learning about the problems they face and how all parts of the industry could be improved." 

Wu uses dairy meat exclusively to help support that industry and to help create a new narrative around the value of retired dairy animals. "Most ranchers sell dairy animals for a very low cost when they are too old to produce because consumers believe that the meat is too old to be good, but it is actually delicious and perfect for making jerky," says Wu. "We need more people creating businesses that support ranches, not the other way around."

Wu is sharing the skills she has learned in whole animal butchering to help propel this mission of access to healthy meat for both consumers and the planet. She taught her first whole animal butchering workshop at a Women in Ranching Circle at the PT Ranch in Ione, CA, in May 2022. 

"The experience was transformational," says Wu. "I was really nervous, and I remember having to pick a word to express how I was feeling at the time. My word was "fear," and my goal was to come out of the workshop feeling fearless. The group of women allowed me the space to acknowledge my fears and work through them. Coming from the film and food industries, I'm often surrounded by men, and there is sometimes a sense of intimidation - I've found myself feeling like I needed to stand up taller or talk louder or pretend I knew how to do things that I didn't. This event allowed me to be vulnerable and let my guard down so I could naturally flow into my strength." 

There have been times in Wu's journey when she has felt like an imposter trying to fit into a world she has not been a part of for long enough to have a voice. 

"There are still a lot of moments when I wonder if I can be good at this because I'm not a chef, and I'm not a rancher or an expert in the meat industry," she says.  

One of the ways she has been able to move through this feeling is by surrounding herself with a community of women who uplift her and believe in her potential. "The words and the stories that we tell ourselves and each other are so important," says Wu. "There is so much inner work needed to get out of that mindset and shut off those negative feelings. Sometimes we need to reframe our stories." 

The story she tells herself now is: I am a butcher. I might not be the best butcher in the world, but I care a lot for this industry and these animals and will always do my best.

"When I tell myself this new story, it makes me feel like I am enough," says Wu. "And we don't have to do it all alone."

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Photos by Rae Serra