“The nutritional content just goes down and the satiation content,” said Rebecca Walter, one of the co-owners of the Bloomington-based snack bar company. “If you’re eating something that’s 11 months old, it’s not going to satisfy you in the same way.”
Since Walter and her co-owner, Tracy Gates, started the company about two years ago, several businesses have asked them to extend the three-month shelf life of their bars.
“We just held our ground on that though,” Gates said. “We were like, ‘That freshness is what makes our product unique. That’s what doesn’t exist in the market right now.”
Their bars have no genetically modified organisms and use all natural ingredients. According to the women, they are the only bar in the Midwest with such a short shelf life.
“You can go to the grocery store and buy every single thing in our bars yourself,” Gates said.
Walter is a former IU women’s track coach, and Gates is also an avid runner. Initially, the two women had planned on making a running equipment store where their employees could make healthy snack bars during the daytime customer lulls.
In the beginning, they tested their bar recipes on the track runners. Once they started getting positive feedback, they said they soon realized a successful snack bar company couldn’t be just a side business.
“We grew five fold in the last month,” Walter said. “Up until recently it’s just been the two of us making and packaging every single bar.”
Now that the company is producing between 7 thousand and 10 thousand bars each week, which are then distributed in 14 states, the women have left their full time jobs and hired extra hands.
They said their goal is to become a strong regional brand for the Midwest. Gates said Bloomington is the perfect hometown for this kind of ambition.
“The people here are super receptive, and they are healthy,” Gates said. “Once they get behind a product, they really get behind it. Bloomington wants to see Bloomington grow.”
Neither of the women have any business experience, so they are learning everything as the company grows.
“Just the variety of every day is exciting,” Walter said. “I had no kitchen experience either, so I am learning so much.”
Because of their commitment to freshness and their small-scale production, the women said they will never be able to compete with the prices of national snack bar brands. They insisted that it’s worth the splurge.
“You’re gonna spend money on beer at Kilroys anyways,” Gates said. “I mean, jiminy Christmas. What’s going to fuel you better — a beer at Kilroys or a snack bar that’s healthy?”
