Our New Office - DIY

Last month we talked about some of our growing pains with the new website functionality to ship to APO and Canada. Since then, we have literally reached the capacity of our old office. In fact, the caption of the picture on the left should be "room for 2 more" since the week after this picture was taken, 2 more people joined us at Element Bars HQ.

At the end of January, we packed up our things and (with the help of a few Crispy Cranberry bars!) moved a whole 500 feet down the street to rent a space of our own in a converted warehouse. In the spirit of any start-up, we decided to do as much as we could ourselves. We rented a U-Haul truck, bought some used furniture, and got down and dirty as we sanded and painted the new walls. The space is large and we have room to grow, but the cement floors and 14-foot high ceilings conspired to create a big echo problem. A few room dividers, soft carpets, and a little furniture help fixed that problem. If you give us a call and you hear an echo in the background, we apologize in advance!

In the end, the new Element Bars HQ has everything - some pens, plentiful desk real estate and all-natural energy bars. What more is there?!

Growing Pains

This month brought many changes to the Element Bars shipping options first, with APO/FPO and then with Canadian shipments. Adding features to websites can sometimes be a harrowing task as seemingly every new addition breaks an existing component. We do our best to make sure everything works when we add something to the website, but on occasion, something slips by us. Shortly after adding the ability to ship to Canada, we realized that we had effectively "broke" the site.

It was pretty bad. Not "dogs and cats, living together" bad but "lost your only pair of glasses" bad.

Thanks to a few internet Good Samaritans, we were quickly alerted to the problems and we're fairly certain that they have been fixed. That being said, bug reports are appreciated greatly and welcomed!

We're proud to offer Element Bars to our new customers in our armed forces and in Canada and are grateful for our customer's patience through our growing pains!

Element Bars - Healthy Recipes

This special blog post is by Amie Valpone, Author of The Healthy Apple, www.thehealthyapple.com

Amie Valpone, HHC, AADP is a Manhattan based Culinary Nutritionist with a passion for cooking, baking, and healthy living in the Big Apple of NYC, she strives to find the right balance for her clients using whole, natural, unprocessed foods.

Below are 12 recipes using Element Bars as ingredients, followed by 4 of my very own favorite Element Bars creations! Enjoy.

Element Bars Recipes

Element Bars Oatmeal Pancake

Ingredients

* 1/3 cup oats

* 2 eggs

* 1/2 tsp baking powder

* 1/2 tsp almond extract

* 1 Element Bar, crumbled into granola consistency

* 1/2 a mashed, ripened banana

* Cinnamon to taste

Directions

* Mix together oats and two eggs with baking powder, almond extract and cinnamon in a bowl. Add mashed banana to the batter. Mix well.

* Add Element Bars pieces and continue to mix.

* Preheat a skillet on the stovetop sprayed with non-stick spray. Pour batter into skillet over Medium heat, forming into a pancake shape with a spoon.

* Cook for 3 minutes or until slightly brown; flip the pancake with a spatula and cook for another 3 minutes.

* When pancake is completely cooked and has started to brown, remove from skillet and serve.

* Top with fresh fruit and drizzle with honey, syrup or warm nut butter.

Element Nut Butter Muffins

Ingredients

* 1 Element Bar, crumbled into granola consistency

* 2 eggs

* 1 tsp. vanilla extract

* ¼ cup natural crunchy peanut butter

* 1 cup whole wheat flour

* ¾ cup flour

* 1 tbsp. baking powder

* 1 tbsp. melted butter

* 1/3 cup sugar

* 1/3 cup brown sugar

Directions

* Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

* Spray muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray.

* Mix all wet ingredients together; beat on medium speed with a mixer.

* Add dry ingredients (including Element Bars pieces). Mix well.

* Pour into muffin tins.

* Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Element Popcorn Snack Bars

Ingredients

* 1/2 cup honey

* 1/3 cup natural peanut butter

* 1 Element Bar, crumbled into granola consistency

* 1 cup honey roasted peanuts

* ½ tsp. sea salt

* 3 cups air-popped popcorn

Directions

* Line an 8 or 9-inch square baking pan with foil. Spray foil lightly with cooking spray; set aside.

* Heat honey in a large saucepan until boiling. Stir in peanut butter until well blended.

* Remove pan from heat and stir in Element Bars pieces, peanuts, sea salt and popcorn until coated.

* Press mixture evenly into prepared pan. Refrigerate until cool; cut into bars to serve.

Element Chicken Salad Sandwiches

Ingredients

* Whole wheat bread slices

* 1 Element Bar, crumbled into granola consistency

* 1/2 cup seedless red grapes, cut into halves

* 1/4 cup chopped red apple

* 1 Tbsp. agave nectar or honey

* 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt

* 2 cups chicken salad for sandwiches

* For chicken salad

* Plain Greek yogurt

* Chicken, cut into chunks

* Celery, diced

* Sea Salt and Pepper, to taste

Directions

* Make chicken salad with yogurt, chicken, celery and salt/pepper. Set aside.

* Mix all remaining ingredients; combine with chicken salad and mix well. Refrigerate until needed.

* Spread chicken salad mixture over slices of whole wheat bread.

Element Bars Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

* 1 cup water

* 2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

* 1 tablespoon butter

* 3/4 teaspoon salt

* 2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour

* 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

* 1 Element Bar, crumbled into granola consistency

* 1/3 cup nonfat dry milk powder

* 4 teaspoons brown sugar

* 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

* 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Directions

* In bread machine pan, place all ingredients in order suggested by manufacturer.

* Select basic bread setting.

* Bake according to bread machine directions.

* Be sure to check dough after 5 minutes of mixing; add 1 to 2 tablespoons of water or flour if needed.

Element Bars Banana Bread

Ingredients

* 1 Element Bar, crumbled into granola consistency

* 1 cup sugar

* 3 ripe bananas

* 1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt

* 2 tbsp. melted butter

* 2 eggs

* 1 tbsp. vanilla

* 2 cups flour

* 1 tbsp. baking soda

* Dash of cinnamon

Directions

* Preheat oven to 350 degrees

* Spray bread pan with non-stick cooking spray

* Combine all wet ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Mix together with a mixer on medium speed; slowly add in Element Bars pieces.

* Add dry ingredients. Mix well.

* Pour into bread pan and bake for 35 minutes.

Element Coleslaw

Ingredients

* ½ head green cabbage

* ½ head purple cabbage

* ½ Element Bar, crumbled into granola consistency

* 2 tbsp. honey

* 1 cup plain Greek yogurt

* 1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

* Dash of each dried herb/spice (chili powder, sage, cilantro)

* Sea salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

* Mix all above together in a medium sized bowl

* Refrigerate and serve chilled.

Coconut Cream Cheese Dip

Ingredients

* 8 oz. cream cheese

* ½ cup unsweetened flake coconut

* 2 tbsp. honey

* 1 tsp. vanilla extract

* 1 Element Bar, crumbled to granola consistency

Directions

* Mix together cream cheese, honey, vanilla and coconut; mix well. Add Element Bars pieces and continue to mix until pieces are completely coated.

* Form a ball with the cream cheese and place on a plate.

* Serve with graham cracker sticks, cookie sticks or apples.

Element Apple Crisp

Ingredients

For Apples:

* 6 apples, cut into pieces

* 1 tsp. honey

* 1 tsp. flour

* Dash of cinnamon

For Topping:

* 1 Element Bar, broken into granola consistency

* ½ cup oats

* ½ cup oat bran

* 2 tbsp. water

* ¼ cup brown sugar

* Dash of vanilla

Directions

* Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

* Mix together apple pieces, cinnamon, honey and flour. Place apples onto a baking sheet and begin baking.

* Mix topping ingredients together in a separate bowl. Mix well.

* After apples have cooked for 20 minutes, pour over apples and continue to bake for another 20 minutes.

Turkey Cranberry Salad

Ingredients

* 1 Element Bar, broken into granola consistency

* 1 cup Greek plain yogurt

* ¼ cup dried cranberries

* ¼ cup walnuts

* 2 large turkey breasts (cut into chunks)

* ½ cup red onion, chopped

* 2 stalks celery, chopped

* Drizzle of honey or agave nectar

Directions

* Mix together above ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Mix well.

* Place salad atop a bed of greens or on inside a pita, wrap or sandwich.

Element Smoothie

Ingredients

* 1 banana

* ½ cup silken tofu

* ½ cup yogurt

* 1 Element Bar, crumbled to granola consistency

* 1 tbsp. honey

Directions

* Slice banana and freeze until firm.

* Blend tofu, yogurt, Element Bars crumbles and honey in a blender until smooth.

* With the motor running, add the banana slices through the hole in the lid and continue to process until smooth.

Honey Apple Salad

Ingredients

* ¼ cup pineapple salsa

* 2 cups apples, sliced and diced

* 2 cups jicama, sliced and diced

* ¼ cup dried cherries

* ¼ cup slivered almonds

* ½ Element Bar, crumbled into granola-like pieces

* ½ cup plain Greek yogurt

* 1 tbsp. honey

* 2 tbsp. of fresh cilantro

* Sprinkle of cinnamon

* Sprinkle of chili powder

Directions

* Chop jicama and apples and place into a medium sized bowl.

* Mix chili powder, Element Bars pieces, salsa, honey, cinnamon and cilantro with yogurt in a large sized bowl. Add chopped apples, jicama, dried cherries and slivered almonds. Mix well.

* Chill in refrigerator before serving.

The Healthy Apple’s 4 Element Bars Creations

1. My Chewy Nut

Ingredients

* Chewy

* Cranberries

* Soynuts

* Brown Rice Syrup

* Omega 3

2. My Oaty Chip

Ingredients

* Oaty

* Cherries

* Pumpkin Seeds

* Chocolate Chips

* Immunity

3. My Crispy ‘Honey’

Ingredients

* Crispy

* Blueberries

* Peanuts

* Honey

* Fiber

4. My ‘Date’

Ingredients

* Datey

* Apricots

* Almonds

* Flaxseeds

* Soy Protein

An Experimental Month

Here at Element Bars we are constantly reading up on and experimenting with new and exciting ingredients to add to our already delicious and nutritious line-up! Recently, we've been baking test batches with stevia as well as quinoa.

Stevia is a natural, zero-calorie sweetener refined from the leaves of the Stevia rebaudiana plant and is several times sweeter than sugar and while being diabetic friendly.

Quinoa is an ancient grain native to South America. It is an extremely nutritionally dense grain and is considered a complete protein. Quinoa has recently become very popular, so much so that many suppliers are clean out until 2010!

While the recipes haven't been perfected, we've had some promising results and we hope to add them to our options soon. In the mean time, check out some of our current ingredients or build a bar today.

Introducing Chris

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Suggestions? They go to me, Christopher. I manage the baking operations here at Element Bars and I can answer any questions you have about our ingredients or about your order. I'll be experimenting with potential new ingredients and making sure your bars are delicious.

For example, I recently made a couple of test batches using whey protein "crisps" instead of the whey protein powder. Overall the results were promising. The real advantage to the crisps was that they behaved more like puffed rice instead of powder resulting in a much less chalky bar that had a better consistency than when using the powder.

So if you have any questions or would like to suggest a new ingredient or just want to say hello, shoot me an email at Christopher.lowe@elementbars.com and I'll do my best to get back to you as soon as possible!

Taking on the Sharks

As many of you know, Element Bars was recently featured on the hit ABC show, Shark Tank. After months of intense build up for our team, and a hectic few weeks since the viewing, we’d like to reflect and share tidbits from the experience with you in this post.

A Company in Need of Some Friends (with money)

In the Spring of 2009, our early customers were spreading the word that they loved the taste of our bars. Tales of element bars’ deliciousness appeared on blogs, and more people built their own custom energy bars to see what the fuss was all about. This growth meant that we needed to find some funding to help fuel expansion, and Jonathan Miller went to local banks seeking a small business loan. Unfortunately, the ongoing recession made finding an investor harder than ever.

Enter Shark Tank.

We discovered the open auditions for Shark Tank and immediately decided to apply. Time was short, so we went right to work creating our audition video. To make it through auditions, we needed a strategy. Luckily, Jonathan Kelley’s neighbor, Steve Douglass, has a Masters in Media Literacy and helps his students at Lake Forest High School tell stories visually every day in his Telecom- New Media Production program. We brainstormed together the best way to express Element Bars’ premium product as well as our passion for customized nutrition. Steve shared prospective on how, depending on our creative approach, our audition tape could be viewed in very different ways. We decided to focus on Miller’s love of tinkering, how he created our original bar recipes, and how Shark Tank was the perfect opportunity for us to show the world a better way to create and enjoy their own custom energy bar. After an afternoon of Steve directing, Miller writing, pitching, re-writing and eventually nailing it, we had a video that would have made the Food Network proud. (A special thanks to Margaret Kelley – Jonathan Kelley’s wife - who had to endure the whole ordeal on her birthday)

Days later, we heard we made it to the second round…then the final round…and pretty soon, Miller was on a plane headed for LA. We were excited and nervous. We are passionate about helping our customers eat well and control what they put into their bodies. We also might have a few wacky ideas about how to do it – and this combination could be our Achilles’ heel. The same thought kept coming back: “What if they just want to make a mockery of us?” We knew there was a chance that Miller could give a great performance, but the editing could still portray us as a couple of clueless health nuts. Our only hope was to do our homework and present Element Bars as the budding business it is. We know many of you are tired of being stuck with the same old energy bars filled with unnatural ingredients – but how could we convince the sharks?

Taking on the Sharks

Jonathan Miller came with bars custom tailored for each judge. Kevin Harrington was given a Chewy based “As Seen on TV Bar” while Kevin O’Leary got a Datey based “Mr. Wonderful Bar” – an ode to his performances in the pilot episodes we saw in our research.

Arriving on set was a completely surreal experience. Next door, on the Sony Pictures lot, they were shooting the new Iron Man movie. After he got out of the golf cart, Jonathan Miller was shown a trailer, and to his surprise, it had his “Jonathan Miller, Element Bars” on it. Jonathan pulled out a folding chair, cracked open an Element Bar for breakfast, and chatted with the Shark Tank crew. Jonathan also had the opportunity to meet a number of other contestants who had unique ideas ranging from refillable ink toner cartridges to real estate deals. Within an hour of arriving on set, Jonathan was called in to start his pitch. While the final TV segment was cut down to 15 minutes, the actual negotiations were closer to an hour. Not shown in the episode, he was given the opportunity to call his wife, Jennie, to help with the negotiations. Her advice: "Remember there is a world outside of Shark Tank".

Miller returned to the stage emboldened and, with a fresh perspective, stood firm in his negotiating range. Kevin agreed to bring down his offer and the rest is history. We have the good fortune to work with Kevin – and are excited to report soon on what this means for the future of element bars.

A Day of Reckoning

Miller returned from the filming and immediately began preparing the business for the possibility that the Element Bars episode would see the light of day. The problem: our website was designed to handle a few thousand visitors a day...not 25,000 in an hour. We had only weeks to prepare, so we worked night and day and found a few great ways to speed up the site. But would it be enough?

Because time was short, we had to work right until the airing - at 7:30 PM CST (30 min before the show began), we made our “final” changes... and then entire site stopped working. Our overeager attempts to make it a little faster broke the entire site. We worked furiously until the moment Miller appeared on the screen, when, miraculously, it began working. We were back in action.

Moments later, the rush began. Within seconds of the Element Bars logo appearing on the screen behind Miller, the site was hit by tens of thousands of viewers. Our system was brought to a painful crawl – and, frankly, we don’t know how so many orders made it through. For the lucky ones who completed your orders –your patience is unbelievable! The sheer volume of activity caused parts of the site to break that we had never considered fragile. Both Jonathans worked quickly at their respective computers to diagnose the errors – and found solutions as quickly as possible. By the night’s end, we felt like both the world’s biggest failures and the world’s luckiest food geeks.

The next morning, we started baking and noticed how rapidly our ingredient supplies diminished. Our preoccupation with the website caused us to neglect the critical job of planning ingredient orders. A few ingredient rush orders and many interesting custom bars later, the orders started shipping.

Here's to the Future

When it comes down to it, the Element Bars team is all about great tasting nutrition – the way you want it. The computer is merely the medium that allows us to share. We feel awful that so many of you found a slow or even unresponsive experience on your first visit to our site. Please come back to see us – things are moving along much better now.

Now that the Shark Tank mania has calmed down, we’ve been able to reflect on what this has meant for us. We’re thrilled that so many of you have ordered your own bars. We were shocked ourselves when we realized that an entire year’s worth of orders were baked in the first two weeks after the show. Thank you for believing in our idea and for trying our bars (well...they’re really yours). We hope to have more opportunities to share with you in the future.

If you have any thoughts on how we can improve or delicious options we should carry – we’d love to hear from you.

A busy summer - The story of an intern

(This month's post is written by Tom Valentin, a summer intern from the Kellogg School of Management.)

Coming into the summer as an intern at Element Bars, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I had been warned that working for a small company - even for just a couple months - could be risky. However I wanted to work for someone whose passion for great tasting natural foods matched my own and Element Bars certainly fit the bill.

Within a week I was thrust into the mix when Element Bars exhibited at the Organic Food Trade Show right here in Chicago. Before I'd had a chance to even design my own bar I was answering questions about our ingredients and our plans moving forward. In two days at the trade show I quickly realized what Element Bars could mean to people - an energy bar that truly meets each and every users specific needs - be it nutritional or otherwise.

I also had a chance to try my hand at baking a few bars as well. Here at Element Bars, we're always testing new ingredients and combinations to produce great tasting bars. In the last couple of months I've tested chia seeds, specialty nut mixes, new cores, low-calorie bars, and much more! Working in the kitchen has been a lot of fun and has allowed me to see firsthand how natural these bars really are.

I've also had the opportunity to interact directly with customers at the Farmer's Markets and trade shows we've attended. Those who sample the bars seem to agree - our bars really do taste better and fresher than our competitors. Of course this isn't too surprising since our bars are freshly baked and chock-full of tasty ingredients. Overall I've learned a lot and have had a great time while working on this tremendous product!