Slim Jim is an American brand of jerky snacks or dried sausage sold globally and manufactured by ConAgra Foods, the food conglomerate based in Chicago. They are widely popular in the United States. About 500 million are produced annually in at least 21 varieties. The Slim Jim itself has been transformed in the years since Adolph Levis invented it in 1929. He later sold the company in 1967 for about 20 million dollars to General Mills, who moved the operations to Raleigh, N.C., and merged them into other meatpacking operations that it renamed Goodmark Foods. He sold Goodmark in 1982 to a group led by Ron Doggett. ConAgra bought Goodmark in 1998.