Jones Natural Chews
Oven-baked single-ingredient dog chews from US-raised livestock, made in Rockford, Illinois
🇺🇸 Made in USA
Our assessment
Company details
Where Jones Natural Chews products are made
The company moved to a single Rockford location in 2005 and has since expanded to three facilities there. Everything — baking, smoking, stuffing and packing — happens in Rockford rather than being spread across co-packers, which is what makes a single-ingredient claim checkable.
The natural L bone is the elbow of a US-grown beef animal, and its entire ingredient panel is beef elbow bone. That is the whole list. Alongside it the company states plainly on its quality and safety page that all of its products are 100 per cent grown and made in the USA.
Jones runs a formal HACCP plan with an in-house laboratory plus outside labs and lot-code tracking, and uses the AAFCO definition of natural to govern what goes in. Imported dog chews have a long and unhappy recall history; an in-house lab and traceable lot codes are the specific controls that address it.
The statements that all Jones products are 100 per cent grown and made in the USA and that animal products are raised and sourced from US packers and ranchers, the site-wide Made in America with 100 per cent USA Ingredients line, the 1970 founding as a Woodstock, Illinois meat market, the 1991 establishment of the dog chew line, the three Rockford facilities, the HACCP programme with in-house laboratory and lot-code tracking, and the AAFCO natural definition are all published by the company on jonesnaturalchews.com. The six-generation family meat lineage traced to Stephen Jones in Rome, New York in 1859 is the family trade history, not the founding date of this company, and is described here as such. The legal entity is Jones Naturals, LLC; Jones Natural Chews is its consumer brand.
The story
In 1970 Robert L. Jones opened a small meat market with a smokehouse in Woodstock, Illinois. That is the founding of this company — though the family had been cutting meat considerably longer, back to Stephen Jones, a meat cutter in Rome, New York, in 1859, and through Jones Packing Company, established in 1952.
The dog chews were, at first, a by-product. A butcher shop generates bones, and bones are worth something to a dog. The first baked dog chews were sold in 1987 and the product line was formally established in 1991, by which point three of Robert Jones children — Darren, Dean and Laura — were building it into the main business.
In 2005 the company consolidated into a single Rockford, Illinois location, and has since expanded to three facilities in that city. The catalogue now runs from plain beef bones and centre bones through stuffed bones in peanut butter, pumpkin, cheesy bacon, lamb and prime rib, to stuffed hooves, pig ears and multi-packs.
What has not changed is the sourcing logic. The company buys from US packers and ranchers, bakes and smokes in Illinois, and states that all of its products are 100 per cent grown and made in the USA. It has been named Vendor of the Year in the pet category by VSI and runs a West Coast distribution partnership with IPS.
Why they matter
Dog chews are the category where imported product has done the most demonstrable harm. Contaminated jerky treats and rawhide from unverifiable supply chains have killed animals, and the recalls that followed are why origin matters here in a way it does not for, say, a doormat.
A company that starts as a butcher and ends up making dog chews has a structural advantage: it already knows how to trace meat. The HACCP plan, the in-house laboratory and the lot-code tracking are the same tools a meat plant uses, applied to a product most competitors treat as a commodity.
And the single-ingredient panel is the strongest argument of all. When a product ingredient list is the single line beef elbow bone, sourced from US packers and ranchers, there is nowhere for an unverifiable import to hide. That is what a made-in-USA claim should look like.
Shop Jones Natural Chews products
Browse Jones Natural Chews beef bones, stuffed bones, hooves and pig ears in the Buy American Campaign store.
Shop all Jones Natural Chews products →Visit Jones Natural Chews website →
Frequently asked questions
Where are Jones Natural Chews made?
At three company-operated facilities in Rockford, Illinois. The company consolidated to a single Rockford site in 2005 and has expanded there since.
Is the meat American?
Yes. The company states its animal products are raised and sourced from US packers and ranchers, and that all of its products are 100 per cent grown and made in the USA.
Is the company family owned?
Yes. Robert L. Jones founded it in 1970 as a meat market in Woodstock, Illinois, and three of his children built the dog chew line. The family meat trade goes back to 1859.
What food safety programme do they run?
A formal HACCP plan with an in-house laboratory plus outside labs and lot-code tracking, using the AAFCO definition of natural to govern ingredient selection.