Last year we covered muesli that's mixed to order, and now You Bar has brought another customizable food to the table with its design-your-own nutrition bars.
Customers of You Bar can choose every ingredient that goes into their nutrition bars: the base, protein powders, nuts and seeds, fruits and berries, sweeteners, seasonings, grains and infusions. One consumer might select cashew butter with shredded coconut, organic molasses and nutty rice cereal, for example; another might choose dates, soy protein, walnuts, ground cinnamon and dried banana. Special requests such as for organic ingredients or "extra crunchy" can also be accommodated. Consumers can choose a name for their specially designed bars, and You Bar will print it on each wrapper. For those feeling overwhelmed by the list of choices, on the other hand, You Bar offers three popular bar styles—"Honey Cashew," "Great Date with Chocolate" and "Breakfast Bar"—that are still customizable, but based on set ingredients. All bars are freshly made to order in You Bar's kitchens; pricing is USD 40 plus shipping for 12 fully customized bars, or USD 30 plus shipping for 12 of one of You Bar's popular styles.
Los Angeles-based You Bar was founded about two years ago by a mother-and-son team frustrated with the limited choices on the retail shelves. They're certainly in good company, as consumers have begun to expect having it their way, all the time. Because the bars fall into the realm of snack foods, they also lend themselves particularly naturally to use as gifts—promotional or otherwise. It's hard to imagine a health club, for example, that couldn't delight its members with specially concocted and self-named nutrition bars. (Related: Custom vitamin packs, Blends for Friends tea.)
Website: www.youbars.com
Contact: support@youbars.com
Spotted by: Jonathan Teller
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Yes, there is a proliferation of options that allow the manufacturing of customized items. However, I am skeptical about the sustainability of such companies. For example, producing 12 bars in varying configurations may be OK for a mother and son team..however, what are the costs when increasing number of customized orders are coming in and more and more employees need to be hired? The per capita cost of producing a You Bar is significantly higher than a supermarket variety bar--this means that either price has to go up as higher growth is experienced in order to mean the rising costs OR the company will have to find ways to lower costs, either via less employees (meaning, longer production times which may negatively impact customer satisfaction and repeat orders) or standardizing some base ingredients to cut the time costs associated with those. In short, given just the information in the article and guessing the rest, I am doubtful of the company's future growth and earnings.
Zizo - very good point - you don't think the consumer will pay a premium for this option and hence maintain the margin that would allow this to scale? /moishe
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Moishe- I don't know. The consumers may be absolutely thrilled with the product or there maybe a cult-like following around this product that will enable continued high consumer response despite a price increase. Anything is possible. At this stage, the founders really have to target consumers--perhaps marketing the product in high-end shops-- in order to avoid risking brand dilution, which run counter to developing a loyal customer base. But perhaps, this is something that the founders have already thought about and executing.
I think it's a good idea
it's great how the movement towards customized products, whether it's clothing, food, cars, etc is speeding up. As most people will agree the future in products is niche products not mass market (long tail concept). luckily technology advancements now make this a viable business. /moishe
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moishe | January 25, 2008 9:59 PM