No holds barred

By Marshall Rader

Consumers are looking for more than health benefits from nutrition bars. Taste, quality and convenience are important as well.

Nutrition bars may have started as a niche product for athletes and active consumers, but since being recognized by a mainstream audience, the category has skyrocketed. According to data from Mintel, sales growth of snack and nutrition bars climbed 2.9% to reach $5.5 billion in 2013 compared to the previous year. In addition, the category is set to grow at this moderate pace into 2018, when sales are expected to reach $6.2 billion.

Nutrition bar manufacturers have consistently responded to consumer demands and trends over the years. From creating bars that feature a higher protein content to those that tout a functional nutritional profile, the product platform they are working with is quite adaptable. However, somewhere in all of the category’s growth, in many cases quality became replaced by quantity, fortification took precedence over wholesome ingredients and taste took a back seat. This is especially true in the case of bars that meet a dietary restriction. 

In today’s market, this compromise that has become the norm just is not cutting it anymore. Consumers want taste, quality and convenient nutrition together. They want it, they expect it and the market will again adapt.

When we created The Gluten Free Bar in 2010, we were two celiac brothers in search of a gluten-free bar that tasted great, had simple, quality, wholesome ingredients and was high enough in protein to keep us feeling full. We could not find a bar on the market that met the criteria we were looking for, so we set out to make it ourselves. We teamed with a world-traveled pastry chef to develop our recipes and focused on using simple, clean ingredients. Rather than outsource our production and rely on a larger manufacturing facility to implement our vision, we started our own modest production facility. Over the past five years, we have continuously expanded, and we still create all of our products in our own dedicated gluten-free facility in small batches. Making choices like featuring an easy-to-understand ingredient list, using a complete protein blend of brown rice protein and pea protein and sweetening the bars with fruits and agave allowed us to create a lineup of bars that live up to our high standards.

Our desires back from 2010 are resonating among mainstream consumers today. They are appreciating real food and homemade taste and seeking out products that align them with those values. While it may sound basic, sometimes simplicity can be the hardest to find and toughest to accomplish on a large scale. Among the variety of bars on grocery store shelves, some are made with a short ingredient list of truly natural ingredients while others are made with ingredients like maltitol, glycerin and soy lecithin. This however, does not need to be the case. In this day and age, the growth of natural foods has allowed the ingredient supply chain to catch up to demand. There are many ingredient options available to make great-tasting, naturally nutritious products, including popular superfoods such as quinoa and chia. In addition, commercial ingredients that are gluten-free and allergen friendly like tapioca, agave, brown rice, hemp and pea products are also more widely available.

It is time for the nutrition bar category to take another swing at adaptation, and we personally like the direction it is going. In addition to demanding taste and quality ingredients, shoppers want to know where their food is coming from and how ingredients are processed and sourced. In our opinion, the brands that provide the right balance of taste and quality, along with sustainability and environmental stewardship, are the ones consumers will continue to reach for over the long haul.

Marshall Rader is president of The Gluten Free Bar. He can be reached at [email protected].