Boulder County Business Report
Raising the Bar: Fitness Trainer Creating Natural, Healthy, Tasty ‘Wild Things’ Energy Bar
10/14/2005, Source: Boulder County Business Report, Author: Doug McPherson
BOULDER – Glenn Hattem plans to raise the bar on bars – energy bars to be exact.
Hattem, a fitness trainer at The Workout Studio in Boulder, is working to launch a new snack called Wild Things Energy Bar.
But if you’ve walked down the health foods aisles lately, you’ll have noticed that the shelves already are filled with similar snacks. How will Hattem compete against the mounds of offerings already out there?
By “offering a higher-quality product,” Hattem said. He’s working to perfect a bar created out of healthful, nutrient-filled ingredients – that’s also delicious.
“I’m determined to compete on natural ingredients and taste,” he said. “At this moment, I am researching different tastes, flavors.”
After years of working as a personal trainer and advising clients about nutrition, he decided to broach the industry with a bar that was “nutritious and healthy enough to be a natural meal substitute.
“So often now people not only don’t have time to cook, but they don’t even have time to think of what to eat – especially a truly nutritious choice,” he said. “I wanted to create a bar people could enjoy while they were fulfilling their nutritional requirements.”
Hattem is well aware of all the competition. In fact, for research, he went to stores and bought all the bars he could find, and did his own blind taste-test.
“I researched the nutritional statistics, ingredients and freshness,” he said.
Then he hit the kitchen – his own kitchen in his apartment in Boulder. After training personal clients from 7 a.m. till 8 p.m., he’d start cooking. “I’d never really cooked before, and my family laughed when I told them I was cooking these bars,” he said.
He worked on recipes for two months using his fitness clients as tasters and then spoke with chefs, business school professors, nutritionists, consultants and manufacturers. He also took the Boulder Chamber of Commerce’s 12-week business-plan development course.
“I remember at the first class Sharon King (director of the Small Business Development Center) telling me that by the end of the course I’d either know I should continue or come to the realization that I would need to quit and not do this,” he said. “I worked for hours every day learning and discovering what it would take to make this a success – countless meetings, getting help with branding, graphic design, packaging, marketing advice and on and on.”
During the course he chose the name “Wild Things” to emphasize the natural ingredients and the natural environment of Boulder. “Plus, I thought it was catchy, and kids would like it,” he said.
Eventually he created 5,000 packaged bars but needed the labels attached. He called the Boulder County Jail and hired inmates to label the bars. With that job complete, he did a test run last summer and sold 1,500 at a local school fundraiser. He sold the remaining 3,500 at the The Workout Studio and at the sheriff’s office to raise money for its cadet program.
Hattem wouldn’t share financial specifics but did say he had “a small loss” on the initial sale of the 5,000 bars. But, he said, his business plan projects that ramping up to production would “generate desirable revenue.”
He won’t say what his startup costs were, but added that he did get small loans from Guaranty Bank, a credit line from Colorado Business Bank and used some personal savings. Before he can move forward with large-scale production he said he needs to raise between $150,000 and $200,000.
King, at the Small Business Development Center, said she thinks Hattem may have a viable opportunity because he’s marketing the product through alternative channels – not just focusing on natural food stores or grocers.
“I think he’ll be an active entrepreneur throughout his business life,” King said.
