Salem-based superfood energy bar company, LivBar, scales up for nationwide distribution

Seven years ago, in 2012, Jan Johansen invented a recipe for a new kind of snack bar; free of all of the major food allergens, loaded with superfoods, crunchy and not too sweet. Johansen, a nutritional counselor and wellness coach who owns Salem's Liv Wellness, named the product LivBar. 

"Most energy bars that are on the market today are candy bars that are pretending to be nutritious, " explained Johansen, "If you take the time to read the ingredients on the back of the packaging you will find a host of different processed sugars and protein isolates and concentrates." 

Nonetheless, she found that her clients reached for bars to provide fast, convenient snack solutions.

"The problem I found was that there were no energy bars on the shelf that I would recommend eating, so I started making LivBars for my clients to have as a healthy alternative."

Since 2012, Johansen's bars have garnered a loyal following through sales at coffee shops, local grocery retailers and through Amazon's online marketplace.

Johansen and her husband, Gabe, still hold an ownership stake, but the company has grown to include several new additions. With a newly-signed contract for national distribution in hand, they are ready to introduce LivBar to a new and much larger audience, growth that could create between 20 and 50 Salem-based production jobs.

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Last year snack bars represented national sales of $6.24 billion, reported Food Business News. Nutrition and health bars, specifically, represented a $3.2 billion industry. 

A Salem business at a crossroads

In downtown Salem, a few doors from Straight From New York Pizza and upstairs from a hot yoga studio is LivBar's two-room headquarters. One room is an organic certified kitchen and the other holds a handful of standing desks. 

Wade Brooks, the company's new CEO, responds to email at one of them. 

When the Johansens first founded the company, they hired Jayson Selander to oversee the business' operations, to hand out samples at events and support relationships with Salem business owners. 

Five flavors of LivBars, two of which are vegan and all of which are gluten-free, are now available at Life Source Natural Foods, The Governor's Cup, IKE Box, Roth's stores in Salem, in 11 New Seasons locations in and around Portland. 

Colorful wrappers advertise a trio of ingredients that give each bar its dominant flavors: brown is coffee, maple and cacao; blue is blueberry, vanilla and kale; and bright green is lemongrass, cherry and matcha. The font size of the ingredients list on the back of the packaging is large, as if to emphasize that the list is short, made up of things that might be in the pantry of any health-conscious cook. 

"They did all the right stuff," said Brooks. "The branding, the packaging, the product, it's all fantastic; how come this hasn't gone national yet?"

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Prior to joining LivBar in autumn of 2018, Brooks founded and managed several companies and taught entrepreneurial practice at Willamette University's MBA program andearly-stagee investing at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Economics and Finance in New Zealand. 

Brooks has spent the last six months raising money to leverage LivFoods, Inc. into its next phase of growth. 

"We're everywhere in Salem, and that's great, but we really need to be in the 20+ stores, the Fred Meyer and the Safeway and the Target and everybody else."

Brooks' long-term goal is for the bars to be on every grocery store shelf, for the company is to position it as "a better tasting, more healthy Clif Bar."

Amidst the 155 companies he counted on Amazon making bars, Brooks believes there's room in the industry for the Salem start-up.

"There's insatiable demand, the reason why there are so many bars is because everybody wants bars," said Brooks, "it's the number one snack food in America."

Liv-ing Larger

To make the leap from hometown hero to a national brand, the company has signed a distribution agreement with DPI Specialty Foods, and they are in talks with other supermarket suppliers KeHE and United Natural Foods.

Having these distribution relationships established will mean that they can approach national grocery retailers with a supply chain already in place. 

"A lot of small companies, if they get a big contract they haven't planned for it," said Brooks. He wants LivBar to be prepared to say yes to a call from Costco, Safeway, or any of the other big retailers. 

One truckload would represent more than 500,000 bars, a significant leap for a company where the product is made and packaged by hand, currently in a second-floor kitchen by a team of two people. 

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"There are only two things that kill a business, one is having debt and one is growing too fast...you over-commit and can't fulfill [orders], so we're making sure we don't have that problem." 

Brooks has secured Salem-based investors to ensure the company has operating capital at the ready to make the bars necessary to fulfill their first truckload-sized order, if and when it comes in. 

Though the company can handle their current production needs in their existing kitchen, they're preparing for growth on the production side in tandem with that of distribution. 

Brooks said the company is weighing the options of working with a co-packer (a business to make the bars for them), and the possibility of building a larger, 5,000 to 10,000 square foot Salem-based production facility of their own.

Brooks sees an opportunity for the company to grow in a way that creates jobs. 

"If it gets big the way we want it to get big it could be a major anchor for all of Salem, the way that Dell computer turned Austin into what it is today."

Emily Teel is the Food & Drink Editor at the Statesman Journal. Contact her at eteel@statesmanjournal.com, or via Facebook or Twitter. See what she's cooking and where she's eating this week on Instagram: @emily_teel

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