Our Meat Cute
Hi, we’re Jordan and Garret — the husband-and-wife duo behind Thanks Danks. And yes, our love story involves beef jerky.
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But Thanks Danks didn’t start as a “business idea.” It started as a real problem in our everyday life. Jordan needed snacks that wouldn’t wreck her day.
Garret wanted jerky that actually tasted like beef — not sugar, fillers, or “mystery smoke.” And the more we read labels, the more we realized the bar for jerky was low.
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Somewhere between “who puts sugar on their steak?” and “why is corn in everything?”, we realized the snack aisle wasn’t built for people who care about ingredients and flavor — especially if food sensitivities are part of the equation.
So Garret went back to the kitchen and made what we couldn’t find.
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Thanks Danks is our answer to the question, “Why can’t jerky taste incredible and still be made with real ingredients?”
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Real beef. Bold flavor. No weird stuff. Just a better standard for jerky — and a snack you can feel good about finishing.
Garret Danks
The man behind it all
Garret’s been a beef jerky fanatic since he was four years old. As a kid, he’d roll into gas stations and study the jerky jars like they were fine art — on the hunt for the perfect piece.
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By 14, the store-bought stuff wasn’t cutting it anymore, so he did what any normal person would do: he started making his own. (Yes, really.) He researched everything —cuts, marinades, seasonings, texture — obsessing over questions like: What’s the best cut? What keeps the beef flavor front and center? How do you make jerky that doesn’t taste like candy?
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That curiosity turned into a full-blown craft, and it didn’t stay a “just for fun” hobby for long. Originally from Arkansas, Garret’s culinary journey started in high school and followed him through college — where he sharpened both his creativity and his obsession with doing things the right way — before heading to Austin, Texas.
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That’s where he met his wife, Jordan. The two quickly realized they were both jerky junkies, but Jordan’s allergies made most jerky a hard no. So Garret went back to the kitchen with a mission: create jerky that tastes unreal, without the sugar, fillers, or ingredients that make people feel awful.
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The result: Thanks Danks—what started as a personal fix became a bigger mission to raise the bar for jerky and make a clean, craveable, protein-packed snack that more people can actually enjoy.
Jordan Danks
Taste tester
Jordan calls herself the (wo)man behind the curtain at Thanks Danks. She’s the one behind the brand — making sure everything looks as good as it tastes, and also doing everything possible to stay out of the kitchen (because her cooking skills are not why this company exists).
She’s always been a serious snacker, but her allergies made finding a clean, high-protein snack that actually tasted good way harder than it should be. Most options were either loaded with mystery ingredients or somehow tasted like cardboard with a marketing budget.
On Jordan and Garret’s first date, they bonded over a shared love of beef jerky (romantic, right?). It didn’t take long to realize they were both jerky junkies… but Jordan’s allergies made most jerky a hard no. So Garret went back to the kitchen determined to make something Jordan could eat safely and genuinely crave.
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Jordan still laughs that she — a former vegetarian — ended up married to a beef enthusiast and helping run a beef jerky business. Life has a funny way of working out.
But the heart of it is simple: Thanks Danks started as something deeply personal, and Jordan stands behind it proudly — because everyone deserves a snack that tastes incredible and doesn’t make you feel awful.