What Is Biltong Called in the USA? Names, Nicknames, and Common Confusions

Walk into a grocery store, grab a bag of biltong, and the label probably reads "air-dried beef." Ask someone from South Africa, and they'll just call it biltong. Ask an American who tried it once? You'll likely hear "South African jerky."

Three names. Three different people. None of them flat-out wrong. But only one is actually correct.

We've watched this confusion play out for years. So let's settle it.

What does the word "biltong" actually mean?

The word comes from Dutch, by way of Afrikaans. "Bil" means rump, the cut early settlers leaned on most. "Tong" means strip, or tongue, a nod to the long, narrow shape the meat takes once it dries. Put them together and biltong means something close to "rump strip."

Not a glamorous name. It was never built to sell anything. But it has stuck around for four hundred years across South Africa without a single rebrand. That counts for something.

Why do americans read it as "bull-tongue"?

Here's a fun one. First-time American buyers often misread the label as "bull-tongue."

It makes sense, honestly. Hard consonants. An unfamiliar compound word. Your brain reaches for something it already knows. But there's no bull involved. No tongue either. Just beef, spice, and a few days of air.

Why is "south african jerky" the wrong shortcut?

"South African jerky" is the nickname that sticks hardest in the U.S. It's also the one that misses most often.

Food writers used it. Grocery clerks used it. Even early American biltong brands leaned on it, then quietly dropped it once they realized it sold the product short.

At first glance, biltong and American jerky look like cousins. Both are dried beef. Both come packaged. Both sit in the same protein-snack aisle. But that's where it ends.

Jerky is sliced thin, dried with heat, and usually sweetened with sugar somewhere along the way. Biltong is hung thick, air-dried over several days, and never sees added sugar at all. Different method. Different ingredients. Different texture. Different flavor. You can taste the gap the moment you try our full lineup of flavors.

Call biltong "jerky" and you flatten that whole distinction. Worse, you set people up for something they won't get. A first-timer reaching for "South African jerky" expects that familiar chewy-sweet bite. Biltong hands them something else entirely.

What does "air-dried beef" get right on us labels?

Nearly every biltong brand in the U.S., us included, labels the product "air-dried beef." There's a reason.

Commercial meat in the U.S. falls under the USDA, specifically its Food Safety and Inspection Service, and FSIS reviews and approves meat labels before a product can be sold. "Air-dried beef" clears those rules cleanly, and it separates biltong from the heat-dried snacks sitting one shelf over.

But the term only tells half the story. "Air-dried beef" says nothing about the vinegar cure. Nothing about the coriander and pepper. Nothing about the slow hang, or the four centuries of history behind it. Accurate, sure. Complete, not even close. The fastest way to learn the difference is to try a few flavors side by side.

And that's the real answer to what biltong is called in the USA. On the label, it's air-dried beef. In conversation, it's South African jerky, until someone knows better. To the people who make it and the people who grew up on it, it was only ever one thing: biltong.

It traveled from South Africa to the UK, to Australia, and now to North America. It never once needed translating. Most people don't learn the right name because someone explains it. They learn because after a few bags, "South African jerky" just stops making sense.