NAKOTNE Snacks: Made by an IFS Food Certified Producer

March 1, 2026

THE JERKY is the online shop of SIA SmartBuy in Riga, Latvia. We sell NAKOTNE snacks; we do not make them. They are made by SIA “Gaļas pārstrādes uzņēmums Nākotne” in Nākotne, Jelgava municipality, at a plant approved by the Food and Veterinary Service of Latvia (PVD) and certified to IFS Food. Here is what that means, and what every pouch tells you.

What IFS Food certification involves

IFS Food is an international standard for auditing food manufacturers, recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI). The audits are carried out by qualified auditors from independent, accredited certification bodies. Certification has to be renewed every year with a full audit, and at least every third audit is unannounced.

The audit covers how the whole process is controlled: the HACCP food-safety plan, hygiene, raw-material specifications, protection against foreign bodies, allergen control, traceability, food fraud, food defence and product recalls. Ten requirements are ‘knock-out’ points, among them traceability and the recall procedure: if one of them is not in place, the site fails the audit. In short, the standard checks that the producer’s systems keep the food safe, legal, authentic and true to its specification. The certificate belongs to the producer’s plant, not to our shop.

Traceability: from the pouch back to the batch

Every NAKOTNE pouch is printed with a lot code and a best-before date. IFS Food requires the producer to link each product lot to the batches of raw materials and packaging used for it, with records from the receipt of the meat through every processing step to distribution. The system must be tested at least once a year, and a full trace, back to the raw materials and forward to the customers, has to be possible within four hours.

If you ever have a question about a pack, send us a photo of the lot code and best-before date: those two details identify the batch.

EU meat, made in Latvia

The label keeps two facts apart. ‘Made in Latvia’ tells you where the snack was produced. The first ingredient, which is also the main one by weight, tells you which meat was used and where it comes from: beef ham in the beef jerky and beef sticks, pork loin in the pork jerky, pork ham in the pork sticks and chicken fillet in the chicken sticks, each marked ‘origin: EU’.

What the label tells you

Each 35 g pouch tells you, before you open it:

The name of the food, which says how it was made: every NAKOTNE product is a dried, hot-smoked meat snack.
The ingredient list, with allergens such as CELERY, MILK, SOY or WHEAT printed in capitals, and a ‘may contain’ line for possible traces.
The meat content, given as the meat used for 100 g of finished product: 210 g of beef for Beef Jerky Original, for example, and 250 g of pork for Pork Jerky Original.
A nutrition table per 100 g. The HIGH IN PROTEIN badge on the front is a regulated EU claim, allowed only when at least 20% of a food’s energy comes from protein. Every NAKOTNE jerky and stick flavour meets it.
Storage and use: keep between +2 °C and +25 °C, eat within 72 hours of opening and do not eat the oxygen-absorber sachet. The label also notes that salt can appear on the surface after a change in temperature.
The best-before date and lot code. Unopened packs keep, without a fridge, until the best-before date printed on the pack, usually 12–24 months from production for jerky and 12 months for meat sticks.
The producer’s name and address, and the oval identification mark with LV and A002029, the approval number PVD gave the producer’s plant.

Labels in several languages

The meat-stick pouches carry the full label text in nine languages: Latvian, English, Russian, German, Romanian, Italian, Swedish, Finnish and Danish. The jerky pouches are multilingual too, with Latvian, English and German among their languages, and the beef jerky pouches also carry Russian. Our product pages are in English, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Polish and German, and we aim for each one to give the same information as the producer’s label. If a page ever differs from the pouch you receive, the pouch is the reference: please tell us and we will correct the page.

Sealed packs, delivery and returns

Every pouch is sealed with an oxygen absorber inside, eight pouches to a box. We ship by DPD from Riga to 25 EU countries. If a pouch arrives open, damaged, swollen or leaking, do not eat it: send us a photo that shows the lot code, and we will arrange a replacement or a refund. Unopened pouches can be returned free of charge within 14 days of delivery, even if other pouches from the same box have been opened. For hygiene reasons, opened food can only be returned if it is faulty, damaged or not what you ordered.

Questions?

Questions about ingredients, allergens, storage, delivery or returns? Write to us at info@thejerky.world before you order. Trade buyers with questions about the producer’s certification can write to the same address.