Word: linke
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That was in 1988, when Link had just emerged from bankruptcy. The company, founded about a century ago by an immigrant German sausagemaker, once had an export business in boneless beef as well as in tripe and hearts. But by the mid-1980s it was mainly a supplier to McDonald's. Too many other companies were competing to supply the raw material of Big Macs, though; they forced prices so low that Link could no longer make a profit. It went into a Chapter 11 reorganization in 1986 and emerged two years later as a snackmaker. Its new selling point...
...company began showing off its products at trade shows that attracted foreign importers. Like many other American exporters, however, Link had to modify its products to sell overseas. Japanese regulators, for instance, require a different moisture-to-protein ratio in imported meats than is the rule...
...fanciers are mostly blue-collar types, some of whom buy tube-shaped sausages 14 in. long and weighing half a pound. But in Japan the yuppies who regard jerky as a prestige snack prefer comparatively dainty 6-in. pieces. "The healthy Midwestern appetite doesn't apply there," says Jay Link. Russians are just beginning to encounter beef jerky. Link's distributors in Russia take care to place the tubes on store racks next to potato chips and small cakes so that shoppers will know they are snack food. Link products sell for 10% to 15% more than competing snacks...
...Link has been prospering domestically too. It says total sales will come close to $100 million this year. In 1994 it bought out Dakota Trail, Inc., adding a 50-worker plant in Alpena, S.D., to the Minong factory, which employs 325 workers. Export sales are growing faster, though, and the company is eyeing Costa Rica, Malaysia and Nicaragua as potential new markets. Within two years, it expects exports to account for 25% of total sales. All of which Jay Link sometimes finds hard to believe. Says he: "For us to come out of a town in the north woods...
...Asia the prescription is far less clear." Kevin Watkins of Oxfam--an Oxford-based, nongovernment development agency--says the IMF may shortcut Asia's recent progress. "What differentiates East Asia has been its ability to create growth with equity," he says. "Now the IMF programs threaten to break that link. You may have growth, but with continued poverty...