Sun-dried beef shutki outlives the refrigerator and finds an online market

On 28 May 2026, the day of Eid-ul-Azha, BBC Bangla published a report on beef shutki, the sun-dried beef of rural Bangladesh. Search Facebook for 'gorur mangsher shutki', the report began, and countless photographs, videos and advertisements appear. Some people sell dried beef online, others sell beef pickle, and others post videos showing how to cook dried meat as bhuna, as a mashed bharta or as a hot curry.

BBC Bangla's observation was that a food which was once mainly part of a village method of preserving meat was gradually finding a place in online businesses, food vlogs and urban menus. In the age of the refrigerator the need to preserve meat this way has largely gone, yet the dish survives on taste, memory and tradition. The report spoke to a government officer, a local journalist, a professor at the University of Dhaka and a nutritionist.

This account sets that report beside the official count of sacrificial animals published before Eid, the guidance of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on sun-drying meat, the World Health Organization's (WHO) assessments of salt and processed meat, and the main points of Bangladesh's food safety law.

The method was born of necessity. BBC Bangla wrote that many families made dried beef as a way of preserving the meat of the Eid-ul-Azha sacrifice. In earlier days refrigerators were not found in every home, rich or poor, so people rubbed the meat with salt, turmeric and other spices and dried it in the sun. The meat then kept for a long time and could be cooked later.

According to the report, in the north of Bangladesh, in the coastal belt and in some rural areas, meat was dried alongside fish for generations, and in places the practice still survives. Nor is it confined to Bangladesh: meat dried in the sun or by artificial means is made and valued across Asia, Africa and the Americas.

Md Kawsar Ahmed, a government officer working at Benapole in Jashore, was born and raised in Jamalpur district in Mymensingh division. He told BBC Bangla that as a child he saw beef shutki being made in every house in his village at Eid-ul-Azha, because there were no refrigerators. To make it, the report explained, the meat is generally cut into thin or small pieces, rubbed with salt, chilli, turmeric and other spices, and dried in the sun for several days.

Kawsar Ahmed enjoys cooking and reading about new dishes. From memory he said that turmeric and chilli were not always used: sometimes the meat was salted only, hung between thin metal wires and set out in strong sun.

In some places the meat was smoke-dried. BBC Bangla explained that in this method the meat or fish is not burnt directly in the fire but hung a little above or beside it, so that the smoke and heat draw out the water and the meat dries slowly. It was used in rural areas where food had to be kept for a long time, and it gave the meat a distinct smoky taste.

Kawsar Ahmed had seen this method too. When food was cooked on the village clay stove, he said, the meat was hung above the stove in the same way, and the heat of cooking did the work of the sun; people who wanted a smoky flavour made it like that. He said making shutki this way takes a great deal of time, which many people now find hard to give. Laughing, he added that in the past anyone who wanted to eat this shutki had to do all the hard work themselves, whereas now any traditional food can be found online.

Kader Palash, a local journalist in Chandpur who has worked on the area's history and heritage, told BBC Bangla that he too had seen his mother and aunts make meat shutki whenever the sacrifice came round. But for the past 20 years nobody in his family has made it. In the report's words, although the need has passed, dried beef is for many people not just a food but part of family and regional heritage, and it survives because of its taste and tradition.

The National Moon Sighting Committee met at the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque on the evening of 18 May 2026 and announced that the Zilhajj moon had been sighted, so Eid-ul-Azha would be celebrated across Bangladesh on 28 May. According to bdnews24.com, the government had declared a seven-day holiday from 25 to 31 May for the festival. Saudi Arabia observed Eid a day earlier, on 27 May.

A Prothom Alo report published on the morning of Eid set out the figures of the Department of Livestock Services (DLS). By the department's count, the number of animals fit for sacrifice was 12.98 million in 2024, fell to 12.447 million in 2025, and fell again to 12.333 million in 2026. Of these, 5,695,878 were cattle and buffalo, about 93,000 more than the year before, and 6,632,307 were goats and sheep, 206,000 fewer than the year before. The department claimed that, with supply above demand, 2.227 million animals could be left over.

Drawing on the department's figures for 2017 to 2025, the same report said the number of animals sacrificed peaked at 10.6 million in 2019 and had not reached that level since. During the Covid-19 pandemic, 1.164 million fewer animals were sacrificed at Eid-ul-Azha in 2020 than in the year before, and in 2025 the number fell to 9.136 million. Prothom Alo wrote that, in the view of analysts, the cost of the sacrifice was moving beyond the reach of low-income families.

Prices tell the same story. Citing the Department of Agricultural Marketing, Prothom Alo reported that the average price of beef was Tk 275 a kilogram in 2014. By the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh's (TCB) figures, a kilogram of beef was selling for Tk 780 to 850 in Dhaka's markets before Eid. At those prices, keeping the sacrificial meat well matters to every household.

Professor Md Nizamul Haque Bhuiyan of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Dhaka told BBC Bangla that fifty years ago refrigerators were scarce and many families could not afford one, so people dried fish and meat and stored them. Many people, he said, still follow the old process or are preserving that food culture, mainly because of its taste.

But he believes that any food is really a matter of habit. People in the Barishal region do not eat much shutki, he said, while many in the char areas do; the belt of Chattogram, Cox's Bazar, Sylhet and Netrokona eats shutki, and Chattogram is synonymous with it. The main reason, he suggested, may be that their forebears ate shutki, even though sea fish is available there and fish from the region is exported. Where a culture grows up, he said, that is where people eat it.

On how beef shutki came about, he said there is no recorded or dictionary account. He added that in the past, people going to fish in the deep sea would take processed shutki with them, and not only beef: chicken and buffalo meat too.

In Bangladesh the word shutki brings dried fish to most people's minds. Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia, says fish has been dried for preservation in the region since time immemorial and that dried fish is a delicacy for many people in Bangladesh. The principle of fish drying, it explains, is that sun-drying draws out the water so that the activity of muscle enzymes and micro-organisms is reduced to a minimum. Dried meat keeps on the same principle.

According to Banglapedia, important drying spots include Dublar Char in the Sundarbans, Saint Martin's Island, Rangabali, Sonadia Island, Moheshkhali, Cox's Bazar and parts of Sunamganj. Fish takes two to eight days to dry depending on size and species. On cloudy and rainy days the drying fish is often infested by blow flies and their maggots. Banglapedia also notes that to protect the product from insects, merchants often use harmful insecticides and fungicides.

Banglapedia's entry on food preservation calls drying the most ancient method, used for grain, fruit, vegetables, fish and meat, and says sun-drying of fish and meat was practised as early as 2000 BC. Salting has been used to preserve meat and fish since ancient times and is still often combined with drying and smoking. The same entry points out that household refrigeration is used mostly in urban areas, and that refrigeration does not kill micro-organisms; it only slows their growth.

One of the most detailed international guides to sun-drying meat is FAO's 'Manual on simple methods of meat preservation', published in 1990. It describes drying meat in natural temperature, humidity and air movement, including direct sun, as the oldest method of meat preservation. Warm, dry air with a humidity of about 30 percent and small differences between day and night temperatures are the best conditions. Drying is faster when the temperature is high, the humidity low and the air moving freely.

FAO explains that the meat loses the most water on the first day, after which the rate falls steadily. After three or four days of drying, weight losses of up to 60 to 70 percent can be seen, equal to the water that has evaporated. The pieces shrink, become thinner and somewhat wrinkled, and turn from soft to hard. The secret of correct drying, the manual says, is a balance between evaporation from the surface and the movement of water from the deeper layers. If the surface dries too fast it forms a hard crust that traps moisture inside, and spoilage can start from those wet areas.

On choosing the meat, FAO is clear: only lean meat is suitable. Visible fat turns rancid quickly during drying and storage and spoils the flavour. Discoloured parts, blood spots, off-odours or signs of parasites must be trimmed off. Dirty spots should be cut away with a knife, not washed, because washing spreads bacteria over the rest of the meat without cleaning it; knives and hands must be washed thoroughly afterwards.

The meat should be cut along the muscle fibres into long strips of even thickness, because thick strips take much longer to dry than thin ones. All strips in one batch must have the same cross-section, or some will be under-dried and others over-dried. Under dry conditions, FAO found strips with a cross-section of 1 by 1 centimetre, or flat, leaf-shaped pieces no more than half a centimetre thick, the most suitable.

FAO also explains why the meat is salted before drying. For strips and flat pieces it describes dipping the meat in a salt solution of about 14 percent for about five minutes. This inhibits microbial growth on the surface and keeps flies away, and during drying a thin layer of salt crystals forms on the surface, absorbing moisture and keeping it dry. But FAO warns that salting must be done within five hours of slaughter, because after that the massive growth of micro-organisms can no longer be reduced by salt.

How the meat is hung matters as well. FAO does not recommend the traditional practice of hanging meat over tree branches, wire or rope, because wherever the meat touches the support or another piece it stays wet and becomes a home for bacteria and flies; under trees air circulation is poor, and wind blows dust, twigs and leaves onto the meat. Instead each strip should be hung individually from one end with a hook, a string loop or a clip. The manual recommends keeping the lowest level of a drying rack at least one metre above the ground, adding a roof where needed and covering the sides with insect screen.

Meat cut this way takes four to five days to dry, FAO says. Properly dried meat has a uniform dark red colour on the surface and in cross-section and is as hard as frozen meat. A darker outer layer with a bright red, soft centre shows that the surface dried too fast and moisture remains inside, and such pieces are more likely to spoil. There must be no off-odours, and any meat showing signs of deterioration must be rigorously sorted out.

On storage, FAO says dried meat that becomes wet quickly grows bacteria and moulds, so the store must be rain-proof; protected in this way, dry meat can be kept for more than six months. Before eating, such meat is put in water and boiled to rehydrate it, and FAO says rehydrated dried meat has almost the same nutritive value as fresh meat.

FAO's view of smoke-drying is more cautious. Light smoking adds flavour and helps prevent mould on the surface, especially in humid climates. But meat dried quickly over a fire is often half-cooked and has to be eaten soon or it will spoil, and FAO writes that the quality of traditionally smoke-dried meat is generally poor. If the pieces are of uneven thickness, the small ones over-dry while the thick ones stay moist in the centre.

BBC Bangla noted that the beef shutki of this region resembles beef jerky, a popular food in the West and especially well known in the United States. Beef jerky usually means dried beef that is cut thin, marinated in spices or sauce and then dried so that it keeps for a long time. It is mostly eaten as a snack.

Citing a publication of North Dakota State University in the United States, BBC Bangla wrote that jerky comes from the meat-preserving traditions of the indigenous peoples of North and South America. They moved from place to place in search of food or with the seasons, and hunted bison, elk and deer. When they could not eat all the meat at once, or were preparing for winter or a long journey, they cut it thin, hung it high and dried it in the sun, sometimes over smoke to keep flies away and add flavour.

The word jerky comes from ch'arki in Quechua, meaning dried, salted meat, which the Spanish pronounced as charqui. Quechua is an indigenous language family of the Andes that originated in central Peru and became the main language family of the Inca Empire. According to BBC Bangla, ch'arki was traditionally made by drying thin slices of llama or beef in the sun and freezing them in the cold nights. The Spanish learned the method in South America, it spread to other places, and because it was easy to carry and did not spoil quickly, it became popular with cowboys and travellers.

FAO's 1990 manual describes traditional dried meats from several countries. Some examples:

• Odka (Somalia and East Africa): sun-dried lean beef, important to nomads and often made from drought-stricken livestock.
• Qwanta (Ethiopia and East Africa): long strips of beef coated in salt, hot pepper and aromatic seasoning and dried over wire in the kitchen.
• Kilishi (Nigeria and the dry zones of West Africa): thin slices sun-dried, soaked in a groundnut-paste infusion with spices, dried again and briefly roasted over a fire.
• Biltong (southern Africa): salted, dried strips of beef or antelope meat, eaten without cooking.
• Pastirma (Turkey, Egypt, Armenia): beef salted, pressed and air-dried, then coated with a garlic and spice paste; it takes several weeks to make.
• Charque (Brazil and South America): flat pieces of beef salted and then dried in the sun over several days.

Another FAO publication notes that in developing countries meat is usually eaten fresh, and that processed meat products, apart from dried meat in some African countries, are not in great demand. It describes biltong as meat trimmed of fat, cut into thin strips, rubbed or soaked with salt and spices, and sun-dried on a frame under insect-proof mesh, with a dryer used instead in humid or cool climates. There is also a key difference between biltong and jerky: biltong is air-dried, while jerky is heated to at least 71 degrees Celsius.

BBC Bangla's conclusion was simple: in its basic idea, beef jerky and Bangladesh's beef shutki are much the same food, meat dried so that it can be eaten over a long period. But preparation and eating differ by region and culture. Bangladeshi shutki is usually cooked as bhuna, bharta or a hot curry, while jerky and biltong are eaten as they are.

Professor Nizamul Haque Bhuiyan told BBC Bangla that the protein quality of dried beef stays almost the same and is not much damaged. But various food additives are added to it, he said, such as tasting salt, which is why it tastes good; ordinary meat tastes one way and shutki another, and that is why many people like it. FAO's publication likewise says that making dried meat does not change its nutritive value substantially compared with normal cooking.

Nutritionist Samia Tasnim told BBC Bangla that drying draws water out of the meat: the roughly 65 percent of water in beef is removed, the weight falls, and the nutrients become relatively more concentrated than in ordinary meat. Her caution was that if extra salt is used in drying, the sodium content rises, so it is better not to add more salt when cooking it. The report added that meat that is not properly dried or stored can grow bacteria or fungus.

WHO's position on salt is clear. Its fact sheet, updated in May 2026, recommends that adults eat less than 2,000 milligrams of sodium a day, equivalent to less than 5 grams of salt, or just under a teaspoon. Yet the global mean intake of adults in 2021 was 4,278 milligrams of sodium a day, equivalent to about 11 grams of salt. The main health effect of a diet high in sodium, WHO says, is raised blood pressure, which increases the risk of cardiovascular and kidney disease among others. The fact sheet names processed meat among the foods often high in sodium.

On processed meat, WHO's cancer agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), published an evaluation on 26 October 2015. It defined processed meat as meat transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation, and named biltong and beef jerky among its examples. IARC classified processed meat as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1) and red meat as probably carcinogenic (Group 2A). The experts concluded that each 50-gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent. IARC's director also noted that red meat has nutritional value, so dietary advice has to balance risks and benefits.

Anyone with high blood pressure, heart disease or kidney problems should ask their own doctor how much salted dried meat, or any processed meat, is safe for them to eat.

Food sold online is not outside the country's food law. Parliament passed the Food Safety Act on 7 October 2013, and it took effect on 1 February 2015. According to the summary in the United Nations' legal database, the act's 13 chapters and 90 sections regulate the production, import, processing, storage, supply, marketing and sale of food, with the aim of securing people's right to safe food. It repealed the Pure Food Ordinance of 1959.

According to a 2015 report by bdnews24.com, the act provides for up to five years' imprisonment and a fine of up to Tk 20 lakh for adulterating food or mixing harmful chemicals into it, and in June that year it was added to the schedule of the Mobile Court Act. The Bangladesh Food Safety Authority, formed under the act in February 2015, works under the Ministry of Food.

Whether food is made at home or bought, WHO's 'Five Keys to Safer Food', translated into more than 87 languages, give a simple framework for hygiene:

• Keep clean
• Separate raw and cooked food
• Cook thoroughly
• Keep food at safe temperatures
• Use safe water and raw materials

FAO's quality criteria can help a buyer. In its description, properly dried meat is hard, uniformly dark red and free of off-odours. A soft or moist centre, or packaging that is damp, is a sign of risk from bacteria and moulds. FAO also advises that dried meat with a high fat content should not be stored for long but eaten soon, because it turns rancid. With Banglapedia's note on the use of insecticides on dried fish in mind, buying from known and reliable sources is the safer course.

Photo: Basile Morin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: BBC Bangla, Prothom Alo, bdnews24.com, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Banglapedia, UNEP-LEAP (FAOLEX), Wikipedia