Ask ten South Africans where to find the best biltong in Australia and you will get ten different answers, two arguments and at least one person quietly insisting that nothing here will ever match the stuff from the padstal back home. This guide is for everyone else: the expat who wants a reliable order, and the Australian who has heard the fuss and wants to know what all the chewing is about.
First, for the uninitiated. Biltong is South African air-dried beef, cut thick, cured in vinegar, salt, coriander and pepper, then hung to dry slowly for days. It is not jerky. Jerky is cooked fast with heat and usually sugar; biltong is dried slow and tastes like concentrated steak. We have settled that family feud before in our braai vs bbq piece, and the same rule applies: related, but not the same animal.
Table of Contents
- How we picked the best biltong in Australia
- Quick verdict
- What separates great biltong from sad biltong
- Protea Foods: best for grabbing with the groceries
- Biltong To Go: best for fresh-made and showing off
- Barbell Foods: best for the ingredients-label readers
- Aussie Biltong: best for bulk orders
- The Jerky Co: best for flavour adventurers and the west
- The five best biltong makers in Australia compared
- Which biltong should you buy?
- The wildcard: your local South African shop
- Host your own blind taste test
- Frequently asked questions
- Final verdict
How we picked the best biltong in Australia
An honest word before the rankings. Every shop on the internet calls its own biltong the best in the country, which is adorable and completely unhelpful. So this guide compares what can actually be checked: the meat each maker uses, how they cure and dry it, the range, the price per pack, and where you can get it. Prices and details below were checked on each maker’s own site on 20 July 2026. No maker paid to be here and there are no affiliate links in this post. And because the only taste test that matters is the one at your own braai (the South African word for a proper fire-cooked barbecue), there is a guide further down for running your own blind tasting.
Quick verdict
In a hurry? Protea Foods is the pick if you want proper traditional biltong without leaving the supermarket. Biltong To Go is the one for fresh-made biltong and showing off with wagyu. Barbell Foods wins for organic, grass-fed credentials. Aussie Biltong is the bulk-order choice, and The Jerky Co takes it for sheer flavour choice and shopfronts you can actually walk into. The full breakdown is below.
What separates great biltong from sad biltong
Four things decide whether biltong is worth your money. The cut: topside is traditional, lean and beefy. The cure: vinegar and coriander should lead, not sugar. The drying: slow air-drying over days, never heat-dehydration, which is the jerky shortcut. And the moisture: wetter biltong is tender and rich but needs eating quickly; drier biltong keeps longer and snaps. Every maker below passes the first three tests. The differences are in style, range and where you can lay hands on it.
Protea Foods: best for grabbing with the groceries
Protea Foods has been making biltong in Melbourne for over 40 years, which makes this family business one of the true pioneers of biltong in Australia. The method is as traditional as it gets: prime Australian topside, hand cut, marinated in spices for over 24 hours, then air-dried slowly over several days. They also make droewors, the dried version of boerewors sausage, thin sticks that disappear at a frightening rate once opened.
What earns Protea this spot is availability. Their range is stocked at selected Coles, Woolworths, IGA and Foodworks stores around the country, plus their factory shop in Cheltenham and online delivery Australia-wide. If your nearest South African shop is three suburbs away and the craving is now, Protea is the answer sitting quietly in the supermarket snack aisle.
Biltong To Go: best for fresh-made and showing off
Biltong To Go is the polished city cousin of the bunch. The biltong is made fresh daily from Australian lean beef to a South African family recipe, with no preservatives. The classic traditional biltong starts at $24.99, snapsticks (thin, snappable biltong sticks, called stokkies in South Africa) from $18, and then things get flash: wagyu beef biltong from $36, plus a wagyu dry wors limited edition.
The trophy cabinet backs up the confidence. The company’s award page says its Chilli Chutney Wagyu Jerky was crowned champion biltong or jerky type product at the 2025 Sydney Royal Fine Food Awards, run by the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW, and that it took five more gold medals in 2026. If you are introducing an Australian mate to biltong and want the fancy first impression, or you simply believe wagyu improves everything, this is your shop. Free express shipping kicks in over $150.
Barbell Foods: best for the ingredients-label readers
Barbell Foods makes biltong for people who read the back of the packet before the front. The beef is 100% organic, grass-fed and grass-finished Australian beef, and the ingredients list stops at meat, vinegar and spices. No sugar, no preservatives, nothing you cannot pronounce. Flavours keep it simple: classic, chilli and sea salt, with a mixed pack from $25 that is the sensible way to start. They also make meat stick bites in the droewors style, including a kangaroo version, which is about as Australian as biltong will ever get.
The catch is that Barbell mostly sells in multi-pack bundles online, so the per-order spend is higher than a single packet, though shipping is free on all orders. For gym bags, hiking packs and anyone tracking protein, this is the cleanest option on the list.
Aussie Biltong: best for bulk orders
Aussie Biltong does two flavours, original and paprika, and does them in serious quantities. The biltong is made in Sydney from 100% grass-fed Australian topside, slow-cured and air-dried with no added sugar or preservatives. A 250g pack runs $34.99 at the time of checking, and the order sizes climb all the way to 2kg, which is either a month of lunchbox snacks or one very good rugby afternoon with the manne (that is Afrikaans for the boys).
This is the maker for households where biltong is not a treat but a staple. Free express shipping over $120 makes the big bags better value than they first look.
The Jerky Co: best for flavour adventurers and the west
Perth-based The Jerky Co has been working from family recipes for over 20 years and cures its biltong the traditional way, marinating topside MSA graded Australian beef for over 24 hours before slow air-drying. MSA is Meat Standards Australia, the industry’s independent eating-quality grading, so the raw material is properly vetted.
Where they break from tradition is range: alongside traditional and chilli you will find sweet BBQ, garlic, smokey, extra hot, Texan and even a truffle fatty biltong, most from $30, with “fatty” cuts for those who know the best flavour lives in the fat. They are also the rare biltong maker with actual shopfronts, around 30 kiosks and stores across Perth, Sydney and Melbourne, including Perth Airport, plus a halal certified range. If you like your biltong with a side of experimentation, start here.
The five best biltong makers in Australia compared
| Maker | Style | Beef | From (checked 20 July 2026) | Where to buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Protea Foods | Traditional, 40+ years | Australian topside | Varies by store | Coles, Woolworths, IGA, Foodworks, online |
| Biltong To Go | Fresh daily, wagyu options | Australian lean beef | $24.99 (250g classic) | Online, Australia-wide delivery |
| Barbell Foods | Organic, minimal ingredients | Organic grass-fed Australian | $25 (mixed pack) | Online, free shipping |
| Aussie Biltong | Two flavours, big bags | Grass-fed Australian topside | $34.99 (250g) | Online, up to 2kg orders |
| The Jerky Co | Widest flavour range | MSA graded Australian topside | $30 | Online plus ~30 stores in three states |
Which biltong should you buy?
Choose Protea Foods if you want traditional biltong on the weekly shop, or you are buying your first ever packet and want the classic benchmark.
Choose Biltong To Go if you want it made fresh, you are gifting it, or the words wagyu biltong made your ears prick up.
Choose Barbell Foods if organic and grass-fed matter to you, or you want a zero-sugar protein snack that is not a chalky bar.
Choose Aussie Biltong if your household inhales biltong and single packets have become financially embarrassing.
Choose The Jerky Co if you want to explore flavours, prefer buying in person, or live west of the Nullarbor.
The wildcard: your local South African shop
Every ranked list needs an asterisk, and here it is: some of the finest biltong in the country never makes it to a website. It hangs in a drying cabinet at a local South African shop, cut to order by someone who will also ask about your mother. Many of these shops make their own in-house and will slice it wet or dry exactly as you like it. Our state-by-state directory of South African shops in Australia will point you to the nearest one. Order from the big makers for consistency; visit the local shop for the conversation.
Host your own blind taste test
The best biltong in Australia is ultimately the one your own taste buds vote for, so make an event of it. Order two or three contenders from the list above, plus a batch from the local shop. Slice everything to a similar thickness, plate each on a numbered board with no packaging in sight, and hand out scraps of paper. Score each sample out of ten for beef flavour, spice balance and texture. No talking until the votes are in, because biltong opinions are contagious. Tally the scores, crown a winner, and accept that at least one person will dispute the result until the next braai. That is not a flaw in the method. That is the culture working as intended.
Frequently asked questions
Is biltong from Australian beef as good as South African biltong?
The beef itself is world class, and every maker in this guide uses 100% Australian beef with traditional South African curing. What changes is climate and drying conditions, which affect texture. Blind, most people cannot pick the difference; homesickness, however, has a thumb on the scale.
Why is biltong so expensive in Australia?
Drying is concentration. Roughly 2kg or more of raw beef ends up as 1kg of biltong once the moisture leaves, so you are paying for two steaks per packet plus days of drying time. Compare prices per dried weight, not against fresh meat.
How should I store biltong?
Cool, dry and breathing. A paper bag in the pantry beats a sealed plastic bag, which traps moisture and invites mould. Wetter biltong belongs in the fridge and should be eaten within days. If it lasts long enough to go off in your house, you bought too little.
Final verdict
If we could only order from one maker for the rest of the year, it would be Protea Foods for the sheer usefulness of biltong that lives at the supermarket, with a Biltong To Go wagyu order reserved for birthdays and bragging. But the honest answer is that Australia’s biltong scene is in rude health, five makers deep in quality, and the gap between them is style rather than standard. Buy a couple of packets, run the blind test, and let your own scorecard settle it. Just do not tell the losing maker’s fans. We have enough arguments at the braai already.
