Behind the Brand: BAR-U-EAT
Meet BAR-U-EAT's Co-Founder, Jason Friday
1. What is the name of your company?
BAR-U-EAT
2. What is your title at BAR-U-EAT?
Co-Founder
3. Where is your company located?
Steamboat Springs, Colorado
4. What’s your personal current obsession? (book, show, drink order etc.)
Because you said book and I’m a total nerd… Made to Stick
5. How did you hear about Naturally Colorado? What made you become a member? Has Naturally Colorado helped you in any way?
We first heard about y’all through the grapevine and always thought that it was only for Boulder Companies, but as soon as we found out that we could come down from our caves in the mountains, we knew we had to be apart of it. The network is so supportive and we’ve learned so much from our mentors who Naturally Boulder connected us with. Not to mention they helped us get meetings and accounts with some pretty rad retailers 🙂
6. What size is your company?
5 employees
7. What inspired you to start your company?
Sam and I grew up across the street from each other and have been best friends since we were 2. After college, Sam traveled the world and ended up guiding in Iceland where I came to visit. On a 24hr long trek where we didn’t have nearly enough food, but what we did have was a handmade Icelandic granola bar. That bar got us through our trek and served as the inspiration for Sam to come up with a recipe of his own. After a little peer pressure from friends and family, Sam started selling his bars out of a mason jar at the paddle board shop he worked at and when that started blowing up, I leaned in to help out and together we formed BAR-U-EAT in 2019. What motivates me is the drive to do something truly good in this world. In the CPG industry we have the opportunity to make the industry more sustainable and healthier so that both our planet and the humans on it can thrive.
8. Why did you choose to focus on the natural and organic industry?
It was a no brainer. With 60% of the American diet consisting of ultra processed foods, I want to be on the right side of the business that is adding health and prosperity to people’s lives. Not to mention the people in the natural industry are the absolute best!
9. Can you describe the biggest challenge you faced during the early stages of your company, and how you overcame it?
Packaging and oil free. As we started to scale it became clear to Sam and I that renting out a commissary kitchen after hours and hand rolling bars was not going to be a sustainable business model ripe for growth. So we were faced with a decision — look for a co-packer or invest in our own equipment for our own facility. A lot of the co-packers we spoke with wanted to either change our recipe and ingredients to make it easier to run on their lines or wouldn’t run our plant-based compostable films because they’d have to slow things down too much. Not to mention the COGS would make our bars crazy expensive. So we made the difficult (and expensive) decision to build out our own small-scale factory and get to work. We were fortunate to have found a building in Hayden, CO which is in an “Enterprise Zone”. That meant that there are a lot of loans and grants available to small business owners looking to add jobs to the community. So we took full advantage of those and never having built out our own factory before, relied heavily on our network for advice. It took us 7 months of work, but eventually got it up and running after more than a few late nights, curse words, and maybe an existential crisis thrown in there somewhere. Now, we’re stoked to have been our own facility, making our own bars for the past two and a half years. A place that we can grow exponentially in. I know we wouldn’t have been able to do it without the benefits our community afforded us and the advice from our mentors and advisors.
10. What keeps you up at night regarding your business?
Do I have enough time to do everything that I need to do tomorrow and still have time left over for myself, my friends, and my family?
11. What strategies can you share that have been effective?
12. How important is networking, and what strategies do you use to build and maintain professional relationships?
It’s everything in this industry. We try to get involved in any opportunity or event that pops up on our radar. We join trade and professional networking groups, but also try to stay active in communities outside of our industry. There’s so much to learn from other communities and I’ve found that if I get to insular, then my creativity goes down. On maintaining professional relationships… I think it’s important to just keep the line of communication open and catch up any time you can just like you would with a close friend. I think the best professional relationships really are friendships.
13. What is one piece of advice or knowledge that has changed your life and why?
2 Billion petroleum-based bar wrappers end up in the trash every year. That’s what made Sam and I take a step back and look at the incredibly oversaturated bar market and say, “we’ve gotta do something about this.”
Connect with Jason.
Learn more about BAR-U-EAT.
More about Behind the Brand:
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