Your typical American works at least 40 hours a week, sleeps close to 50 more and then tries to fit family, exercise, eating and a little recreation into the remainder. No wonder there's been a boom in energy bars, a handy little food product that is custom made for today's hectic lifestyles.

As a result, the energy bar market is as healthy as it has ever been, with estimates placing the number of actual "energy bar brands" at somewhere over 70 and the size of the hard-to-define energy foods market at upwards of $300 million. Powered by brand names such as PowerBar, Berkeley, CA, Clif Bar, Berkeley, CA, and Balance Bar, Carpinteria, CA, the market has worked its way up from its foundation as an energy supplement for serious athletes to a food alternative for busy, health conscious Americans.

Unfortunately, this expansion has yet to reach the nutraceuticals business in any major way. While a few companies-Balance Bar and GeniSoy, Fairfield, CA, among them-have stepped out of the energy bar box to incorporate functional food ingredients into their bar products, the majority of the major players have yet to make the nutraceuticals leap.

When asked, the first reason companies give is usually the lack of consumer demand for nutraceutical ingredients in energy bars. That is usually followed by explanations on how difficult it is to formulate them into a bar in an efficacious amount. Or the manufacturer is patiently waiting for others to do more research.

And then there's the undisputable fact that nutraceutical ingredients just don't taste very good.

Nevertheless, all the major energy bar companies-from PowerBar on down-admit to actively exploring the potential of nutraceutical ingredients, either in existing lines or as product extensions. The level of activity currently, though, seems to indicate that while there may be some potential, there's not enough quite yet to get them to pull the trigger.

Working in favor of nutraceuticals is the general maturing process of the energy bar market, a business born in 1986 when PowerBar founders Brian and Jennifer Maxwell mixed up their first batch of what is still the market leader. As the bar market matures, both the manufacturers and consumers are inevitably looking for the next great thing and there's a good chance nutraceuticals will be somewhere in the mix.

Where's The Rush?

For now, the jury remains interested, but noncommittal. "We are not in any rush to add all of these new ingredients," said Tina Lilley, sales manager for PR Nutrition/Ironman, San Diego, CA, whose distribution channels have greatly expanded since its acquisition last August by Twinlab, Hauppauge, NY. Its target market has expanded along with its distribution, but it remains cautious. "Sometimes something is hot for one month and not the next and we are not interested in just jumping on a bandwagon," Ms. Lilley said.

One company that feels the same way is Stoker, whose "Stoker" energy bars originated as sports nutrition bars for athletes but have evolved into a health and nutrition staple as a meal replacement, snack and exercise booster available everywhere from health food stores to sporting goods stores. Stoker bars are positioned as low fat (less than three grams per bar) with no fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated, fractionated or tropical oils and no refined sugars, while offering 100% RDA of vitamin B and antioxidant vitamins C and E along with 35% of the RDA of iron and 42% of calcium.

Cofounder Paul Eveloff commented it is not for lack of interest that its line has yet to include nutraceutical ingredients. "What it comes down to is that we would not put in any ingredient that didn't have a pretty extensive body of research supporting it," he said. That's why the Stoker bar relies on brown rice syrup, which is 65% complex carbohydrates but costs more than three times as much as corn syrup. "To the best of our knowledge, there are not studies out there that describe the effective dose of nutraceuticals, nor are there studies that suggest the possible effects of combining nutraceuticals with other ingredients, other foods or even other nutraceuticals."

Already operating on the fringe of the nutraceuticals business, GeniSoy describes its "GeniSoy" soy protein bars-formulated with similar carbohydrates to PowerBars but with a higher protein content (five to six more grams than its rival)-as health food bars being used as energy bars because that's what people want them for. "Our primary marketing is to give people the opportunity to get more soy into their diet from places other than tofu," explained national sales manager Ryan Schmidt. "But a lot of people are using them just as an energy bar."

One other reason manufacturers are not jumping into nutraceutical ingredients with both feet is because it automatically limits the potential consumer audience. This, said Bob Serulla, owner of Warren Nutrition Distributors, Grand Rapids, MI a distributor of most of the leading energy bar brands, forces companies to make even more product claims. "There are already a lot of fake claims out there and I am very concerned that companies are making bars that don't meet what it says on the label."

His suggestion: "Someone should test the top 15 bars against their claims and then print the results. That would wake up some people in this business."

Also on the fringe of the nutraceuticals energy bar business is the well known Clif Bar, which is marketed as a sports bar and healthy snack and stakes claim as the largest-selling natural energy bar. Sheryl O'Loughlin, director of marketing for Clif Bar said it addresses nutraceutical-like claims from an overall nutritional aspect. All Clif Bars contain antioxidants, but the company remains unconvinced the general population is as savvy as others think it is.

"We don't think many people understand what antioxidants, or nutraceuticals, are," said Ms. O'Loughlin. "So we focus on the overall health benefits and we try to talk in a language people understand. I don't think they understand nutraceuticals yet."

PowerBar certainly knows what nutraceuticals are. Aware that whatever it does has a huge impact on the energy bar market, the company is making noises about some "special ingredient" line extensions, but has yet to reveal its plans. An indication of its direction comes from the recent introduction of the "Harvest Bar," a more common-person-friendly version of its athlete-inspired PowerBar. Harvest Bar was created by company cofounder Jennifer Maxwell, a professional runner and mother of four, with the catchy tagline, "for life's daily marathons."

In a bow in the direction of nutraceuticals, Harvest Bar contains whole grain oats and premium real fruit pieces. It offers 240 calories in a 65 gram bar, along with 45 grams of total carbohydrates (29 grams complex, 16 grams sugar), seven grams of high quality milk protein and four grams of fat naturally occurring in whole grains and nuts. "We started the category and realize it is growing outside of the definition of energy bars that we established," said Alyssa Berman, corporate communications coordinator at PowerBar. "But we don't want to just be part of a fad, of the 'latest thing' out there."

Balancing Act

One major company-along with a few smaller ones-has taken the nutraceuticals leap. Balance Bar recently unveiled its Balance Plus line incorporating such ingredients as ginkgo biloba and rose hips. "Basically, we took some of our more popular flavors and, because of the demand we've seen for ginseng and other ingredients, made our bars a delivery system for these nutrients," explained Phil LeClair, quality assurance manager. The result: Balance Bar's Honey Peanut bar now contains ginseng, its Yogurt Cranberry bar has a chocolate coating with ginkgo biloba and the Chocolate Banana bar has a chocolate coating with higher levels of vitamins E and C, along with rose hips.

"The consumer is becoming a lot more educated on herbs and we figured we could take our good tasting products and add beneficial levels of these ingredients," he said, quickly pointing out that these are "beneficial," not "therapeutic" levels. "Consumers want these ingredients, but we have to balance what is known about them with a concern for taste," he said.

Balance Bar is certainly aware of the myriad other companies making outrageous-some would say unsubstantiated-performance claims for its bars. "Companies need to be able to put these ingredients in a product and back up any claims," Mr. LeClair said. "You can't measure how much ginseng is in a bar, so there are a lot of free-wheeling claims."

Preceding Balance Bar into the nutraceuticals energy bar segment was Personal Health Development (PHD), Ventura, CA, makers of the "Think!" bar, which beat Balance to the market with nutraceutical ingredients by two-and-a-half years. "People are finally realizing this is the wave of the future," said Tracy Conroy, advertising coordinator for the company. "This market has to grow and evolve into niche markets and companies have to learn to target certain segments."

PHD has been targeting the health food segment its entire history and the Think! Bar certainly pushes the nutraceuticals envelope. Every bar-and that means every bar, not just some versions-contains ginkgo biloba, ginseng, chamomile, B12 and choline; the company is also introducing an energy powder in February containing healthy amounts of phosphatidylserine.

"As consumers become more and more savvy, as people are reading labels and paying attention to what they are putting into their bodies," stated Ms. Conroy, "nutraceuticals is a natural place for them to turn."

Raising The Bar

As formulators struggle with the dual challenges of incorporating enough nutraceutical ingredients into their bars to make a difference, while not losing the all important taste test, manufacturers are almost unanimous in their belief that nutraceuticals will play a role in their segment as it matures and specializes. But there are a few steps that need to be taken first.

"We respect the trust our consumers have placed in us and it is important to understand the nutraceuticals issues before jumping into them," explained Stoker's Mr. Eveloff. "But we are more concerned with seeing the research than with getting a new product to market quicker. There will always be a demand by the public for something that promises results with little effort," he added, "but we have a responsibility to our customers to provide a product that is effective, healthy and safe."

Echoing those comments is Mr. Schmidt, of GeniSoy, who reported the company "is looking to expand into the nutraceuticals area," perhaps with diabetic-type products or by putting nutraceutical or herbal combinations into its existing bars. But, he qualified, "these products are only on the drawing board and it will be a while before we come out with something like that."

At Odwalla, Half Moon Bay, CA, where its natural juice products already play the nutraceuticals game (its "Femme Vitale" contains dong quai and its "Wellness" boasts 2000 mg of echinacea and 2000 mg of astragalus), the next logical step would appear to be to take the concept to its bar business. But, said Chris Gallagher, director of communications, "We are not a nutraceuticals company, so we don't have any real urge to flip our products based on nutraceuticals."

Its current "nourishment bar" line of Odwalla Bars is already based on "real food," meaning no refined sugar, oils, stabilizers or synthetic flavors. The products are "packed" with cranberries, apples, figs, organic oats, crisp brown rice and nuts. "Nutraceuticals and real foods are not in any type of conflict, but they just aren't in our mix yet," said Mr. Gallagher.

You can count on Clif Bar continuing to dabble with nutraceutical ingredients, always with an eye on its heritage as a sports bar, said Ms. O'Loughlin. Inevitably, she said, the market will mature and head down the road towards more specialized products, which in turn will rely on more specialized ingredients such as nutraceuticals.

"Part of the big explosion of the energy bar market was due to its convenience," she pointed out. "Now there are a whole bunch of other ways to provide consumers with foods in convenient ways, so our expansion has to come from bars for specific groups, such as diabetics perhaps. That's where all the players will be looking."

As usual, in the energy bar segment it comes down to what PowerBar is doing. And Ms. Berman agreed with the move towards specialization. "The grand category of energy bars is segmenting itself into breakfast bars, energy bars, nutraceutical bars and lots of other areas," she said. "We see the market becoming specialized and we are looking into it."

Or, as Odwalla's Mr. Gallagher succinctly put it, "people are looking for great tasting, food-based, easy-to-eat products they can have on the go. Growth will come from these products, whether they include nutraceuticals or not." NW

About the author:

Michael Jacobsen is currently president of custom publisher Jacor Publications, Midland Park, NJ. He spent the previous seven years as editor of Sportstyle, Sporting Goods Dealer and Golf Pro magazines.