From PowerBar Pioneer to JamBar Jams: Jennifer Maxwell's Entrepreneurial Journey

Brent Peterson (00:02.382)
Welcome to this episode. Today I have Jennifer Maxwell. She is the CEO and founder of JamBar. Jennifer, go ahead, do an introduction, tell us your day -to -day role and maybe one of your passions in life.

Jennifer Maxwell (00:14.29)
Okay, thank you, Brent. I'm happy to be with you today. Thanks for having me. I'm Jennifer Maxwell and I am the CEO and founder of JamBar. I'm also the co -founder of PowerBar back from 1985. So I've been in this industry a really long time. Day -to -day role, I have a 360 degree view of everything happening here at the company. We have a manufacturing plant and offices here in San Rafael, California.

But I also have a very minute role in some decision making and delegation, pretty much with every department in the company. So it's a pretty all -encompassing role and I love it.

Jennifer Maxwell (01:03.538)
Oh, I can't hear you.

Brent Peterson (01:09.87)
How's that? All right.

Jennifer Maxwell (01:11.154)
Okay, I didn't hear what you said, but could you repeat please?

Brent Peterson (01:14.606)
Yes. So I'm familiar with PowerBar. That was one of the bars that came out back in the 80s during the pre -internet and when, before all the other bars came out.

Jennifer Maxwell (01:27.249)
That's right. We are the founders of the category in 85. Right.

Brent Peterson (01:30.19)
Right. Yeah, that's great. Um, uh, so Jennifer, before we get started, um, on content, uh, uh, you have graciously volunteered to be part of the free joke project. So all I'm going to do is tell you a joke and all you have to do is say, should that joke be free or do you think some point somebody should pay for it? And then we'll, we'll great jump right into content. So here we go. The beach boys walk into a bar round, round, get around.

Jennifer Maxwell (01:48.658)
I'll get up.

Brent Peterson (01:59.854)
I'll get around.

Jennifer Maxwell (02:03.602)
Alright, do you think that that is a joke that should be free or do you think someone should pay for it?

Brent Peterson (02:10.574)
Yeah, what do you think?

Jennifer Maxwell (02:15.058)
That should be free.

Brent Peterson (02:16.014)
All right, good. Yeah, some of the jokes are tough. All right, so let's jump right in. So tell us a little bit about how you got involved with PowerBar and then kind of that journey in those early days.

Jennifer Maxwell (02:33.81)
Sure. Well, I was a food science and nutrition major at Cal and a runner. And I met Brian in 1985 and we began perfecting the formula for PowerBar in Brian's apartment. And I completed the formulation and we started the business together. Launched the product in January of 1987.

Grew the company, started in our apartment, like I said, we grew the company and then sold it in year 2000. And that would do a whole industry. So that's my experience at the very beginning. And remember that the 80s, we didn't have computers. So we were doing things a lot by hand, a lot by telephone calls, person to person contact. So it was a very different world back then than it is now.

Brent Peterson (03:27.118)
Yeah, my dad was a runner and he would tell me about mailing in his ballot to try to join a race. And sometimes the race organizer would just send them back and say, you're in. I know that he did Big Sur back in those days and I'm sure Powerball was part of that.

Jennifer Maxwell (03:40.498)
You're it.

Jennifer Maxwell (03:46.066)
Yep, power bar. In fact, Big Sur is coming up here at the end of April and Jam Bar is the major energy bar at the Big Sur Marathon. But Brana used to actually build our business mail order. We'd go to events and have a little tear off coupon we put underneath the windshield of cars. People could fill it out and send it in with a check and we would send out their order. So it was a very much more person to person interaction.

Brent Peterson (04:15.31)
So tell us about how you came up with the idea. I know that at that time there wasn't, maybe Gatorade existed, but even in races they did, maybe they had water on the course, but certainly I think energy gels that was pre all that time. And tell us a little bit about how you came up with the idea.

Jennifer Maxwell (04:34.354)
So Power Bar met a need which was to provide a fuel for athletes and people that wanted to eat something and they didn't want to upset their stomach. So the digestibility of the product was really high because of the way that the ingredients were put together. It didn't have a coating of like an enrobing on the outside so the fat content was less.

products that are high in fat and high in simple sugars that can be harder to digest. So it was really that context of this isn't a candy bar, this is more of an athletic energy bar. And that was the premise of how we got started. And just the functionality of the product, having the protein, at the time it had vitamins and minerals, so it was like a little mini low -fat meal, and people would use it that way, before athletic, then during, and after.

Brent Peterson (05:23.438)
So you've gone through that and you obviously didn't have enough of the space because now you're back again with JamBar. Tell us why you did that and some of the motivations in what you're doing.

Jennifer Maxwell (05:32.498)
Great.

Jennifer Maxwell (05:37.234)
Okay, so, I mean, like I said, we sold Power Bar in 2000 and we were raising our family. Brian and I have six children and Brian passed away very tragically in 2004. And so my life took an upheaval at that time, as you can imagine. And I became a musician. I found the drums as a source of healing and started playing drums in 2007. So music became a big part of my life, still is.

looking at the food industry specifically getting back into the food industry really the impetus was I looked at energy bars on the market and I saw a void and the void was something high in quality. There's a lot of bars on the market but not very many organic which I wanted to create an organic bar and I wanted to be high in quality meaning every ingredient is

pure, not a manufactured sugar like most every one of them will have like a brown rice syrup or tapioca syrup which to me is not really an integral food product that's something that's converted from a starch. So it's not like an authentic sugar. So I've used maple syrup and I wanted something that was really high quality that is all real food. So in 2015 I began in my kitchen to formulate a new bar. It took me about four years to create Jam Bar.

It was really my goal was to create something super tasty and high quality and that's what Jam Bar is.

Brent Peterson (07:03.278)
And how do you recommend the athletes package that and use it? Is it for runners or just for any athlete at any time?

Jennifer Maxwell (07:12.722)
It's for anyone who eats. I mean, Jam Bar is a great product for, I mean, primarily for athletes based on my experience formulating food for athletes. But there are actually three pillars of our company here. So it's authenticity, which is the fact that I created this category back in the 80s. I've been around a long time, looked at a lot of different food products, have a lot of experience in food formulation. So authenticity is a big part of Jam Bar. Quality is the second pillar.

And that's a big part of Jam Bar. It's just the quality of the ingredients, everything, real food. And the third is philanthropy. So Jam Bar contributes 50 % of our after -tax profits to organizations that promote music and active living, sports. So those are the three pillars of what makes Jam Bar a different type of company and a different type of product.

Brent Peterson (08:03.822)
and why did you come up with the name JamBar? Or how did you come up with the name JamBar?

Jennifer Maxwell (08:06.93)
Right? So remember, remember I told you I became a musician, right? So our slogan is to get your jam on. And as I said, music is a big part of my life. I'm playing two different bands, mostly jazz, but to get your jam on is our slogan. And really what I did for it is I combined my two passions, which are sports and music. So after I had the formulation, I thought, what should I call it? Right? Should I call it power bar 2 .0 or something like that?

And it just dawned on me, like, why don't I incorporate jamming, right? You jam into music and it's a bar. So Jamboard is kind of like rolled off and I think it's a great name. If you look at the wrapper, it's a very fun whimsical type of packaging. My daughter actually drew the musicians and the ingredients that are on the bar is sort of a little bit of a retro look. I wanted to be retro.

but current is kind of my slogan. You can tell that it's a little bit more homemade kind of, it's not corporate looking, it's a homemade looking kind of wrapper. And so Jambor is just, it's a different name. It's just cool. So that's kind of how we came up with it.

Brent Peterson (09:22.062)
That's awesome. So tell us a little bit about, um, has the journey been different in starting this new company as opposed to PowerBar? Is it, has have things changed a lot since the eighties in terms of how companies are run?

Jennifer Maxwell (09:34.354)
Yeah, things have changed a lot. What's fun for me as a food scientist is I look at what are all the different ingredients that I can use now. And I focused on what are the different grains I can use. I want to go gluten free for the most part. So I look at different grains. I look at different protein options. And that's why Jammar is an innovative product. We use sorbun, we use quinoa, we use brown rice, we use oat bran.

We use maple syrup, which is pretty innovative in terms of a produced food product. We use the sunflower seed protein in our plant -based vegan options, which are three of them of that. And then we have two that are whey -based protein. So it's really just what was available to me. We use a lot of real fruit and different types of chocolate. So that's exciting for me is looking at how do I combine all these different types of foods that I can find out into something that's a super product, super good product.

In terms of other parts of starting the company, it's been more challenging, I would say, just because there's a lot of information out there and sifting through all the information that's coming at you from technology is a challenge. And organizing yourself, organizing your time, organizing your priorities, sometimes people don't get back to you the way that they used to. So just that part of the business is definitely challenging. But still, we'd like to be people to people.

We like to have all different types of consumers. We have distributors, but we also deal direct with small Ma and Pa brick and water stores. So we kind of like to really get out there and be available for everybody.

Brent Peterson (11:19.758)
And I think I saw that you've signed a professional surfer as a spokesperson now. Are you seeing that industry as well as a strong mover for the energy bar industry?

Jennifer Maxwell (11:25.17)
Yeah.

Jennifer Maxwell (11:32.754)
I think that Tia Blanco is a fantastic person and she's a great world class surfer. She was at an expo with us. I spent some time with her in our expo booth. She's a mom, she's a vegan, she's an athlete. So Tia and I have a lot in common. But we like to work with high level athletes and people that appreciate the quality of the product and also our mission and what we're doing giving back to community.

So we have Johnny Mosley, we have Tia, we have some really high level runners and Sage and Joe Klecker. We have...

Jennifer Maxwell (12:12.338)
some other high level runners and other athletes, mountain bikers. So we work with a lot of different types of athletes.

Brent Peterson (12:20.654)
That's awesome. I winter in Hawaii and I summer in Minnesota, so I get the best of both worlds, but they always include water. I am trying to become a surfer. It's just at my age. I shouldn't use that excuse, but it is sometimes challenging and I know that's more like getting the time out there to do it. It's probably more what I need.

Jennifer Maxwell (12:41.394)
I'm not a surfer either. Yeah.

Brent Peterson (12:45.262)
Um, so in terms of, um, your team, like tell us a little bit about the team that you have running and running Jam bar and, and how, uh, how your, your plans are to grow.

Jennifer Maxwell (12:54.866)
Okay.

Jennifer Maxwell (12:59.442)
Okay, so I mentioned that we have a very tight -knit team here. We have a stand -of -the -art manufacturing facility where we make our own product because the quality is very, very high. So we don't want to co -pack it. And just committed employees who really love their job. And we do a lot of events. We're involved with, so our marketing really is getting out there, contributing to community, giving out a lot of bars, combining efforts with other...

organizations that promote community, whether it be a race, a musical event, a music school, people that are just involved in bringing people together. And it's fun. For the most part, I love my job and I love working with people and I love to create. So Jam Bar is definitely an inspiration for creativity.

Brent Peterson (13:52.526)
I'm from the expo. I'm assuming you're at a lot of expos for races and has that been a good channel for you to help get the word out?

Jennifer Maxwell (14:05.97)
Yeah, Expos are fun. It's a networking opportunity, right? So you're working with big potential buyers, bringing your product to the forefront, really explaining your story, sampling the product. We do a lot of sampling so people can try it for themselves and see which flavor they like best and see what's different about our bar compared to other products on the market and how retailers might like to include it on their shelves. Expos are fun. Yeah, it's a lot of networking and for the most part, just really enjoying meeting people.

Brent Peterson (14:35.886)
What has been your favorite race to do as a runner?

Jennifer Maxwell (14:42.066)
back in the day. I don't race anymore. Oh, I don't know. I haven't raced for so long. I still run, but I haven't raced. Oh, I don't know. I could say the Dipsy, right? The Dipsy is the second oldest race in America. Very fun, very quirky, very different. Beautiful trail. So say the Dipsy or maybe the Double Dipsy. Twice as much fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Peterson (14:43.502)
Hahaha.

Brent Peterson (15:04.366)
The double dip see awesome. Um, from, uh, you know, we, we talked a little bit about how the market has been, is, is become not saturated, but there's a lot of products out there in terms of energy buyers. And I agree. There's a lot of, I don't want to call them fake products, but there's a lot of heavily manufactured or heavily. Products that have a lot of other things in there. Um, I won't name any names. Right. Um,

Jennifer Maxwell (15:24.37)
Yeah.

Jennifer Maxwell (15:29.042)
You say dogs are the green ones? Yeah, that's true.

Brent Peterson (15:34.094)
What is it that you message to people that helps understand that this is really something that sets your product apart from the competition?

Jennifer Maxwell (15:48.562)
Yeah, we focus on our authenticity and our quality. We talk about our real food ingredients. One of our slogans is everything in a jam bar you could eat off a spoon. And we think the product speaks for itself for the most part, Brent. We do a lot of sampling, a lot of demos. People taste the product, and sometimes they're skeptical. Like, oh, I don't want to taste another energy bar. They're disappointed, and then they try the jam bar, and like, wow, that's really good. I'm really surprised.

So we let the product speak for itself, but for the most part, just focusing on our ingredients and our messaging and all the events that we do.

Brent Peterson (16:25.902)
I do a lot of writing around cricket powder, about insect powders. Have you looked at that type of industry at all, or is that something that's just not interesting to you?

Jennifer Maxwell (16:37.907)
Oh, well, any kind of food technology is interesting to me for the most part. I haven't looked at cricket powder as a protein source. I don't think it would taste very good, so I might be a little bit wary of that. It would depend on the application. It might be good in a savory application.

Brent Peterson (16:58.542)
Um, what about the, um, the sort of the in, in exercise mode and, and maybe more, more air, more, more of like when runners, is there a, is there a plan to, to move into maybe the, the gels or the non -solid food as well for energy?

Jennifer Maxwell (17:20.978)
Yeah, so line extension, yeah, with Jam Bar, line extension. Possibly, right now, you know, we just launched our fifth flavor. So we have chocolate and malt nut, which pay homage to the original Power Bar. They're very, very similar. And then we have three plant -based, jazzelberry, mango, and tropical trio. Tropical trio just launched, so we just have a new product now. The trio is a combination of banana, pineapple, and coconut.

So that's the tropicalness of it. And of course it is a trio. So right now we're just focusing on the five bars and the five flavors, but down the road, you know, the innovator in me might think of something else, but we're pretty busy with what we have in front of us, you know.

Brent Peterson (18:04.142)
And what's been the most popular tasting bar or the one that people really love the most?

Jennifer Maxwell (18:09.97)
Yeah, that's a really interesting question because it really depends on the area. I mean, we actually sell about equal. I mean, Trio is just getting out there, so it's been incredibly well received. But if you look across the board at our numbers, we're about equal each flavor. What's interesting is some people really love just mango, or some people just love Malt Nuts.

Some people just love the chocolate, some people love all of them, but they are very different, which is another unique attribute of Jam Bar, is that each flavor is very, very unique, which there's no other product on the market that's like that. Usually they'll take a base formula and they'll add a little of this, a little of that, and call it a new flavor. But with Jam Bar, I mean, the two molten chocolate have totally different protein, a little bit different texture. They all have 10 grams of protein.

But the source of protein might be different and the overall taste is very, very unique to each flavor. So it's pretty cool that way.

Brent Peterson (19:11.502)
Have you found that people are looking specifically for protein or more for carbs and starch or is it a mixture of all of the above?

Jennifer Maxwell (19:20.626)
Yeah, it kind of depends on who your consumer is and what they are focusing on in their diet and in their training program. I would say protein is almost always quite popular. Protein is a pretty expensive nutrient. If you think about how much it costs to manufacture in agriculture, how much it costs to create a gram of protein, it's an expensive ingredient. That's why protein bars tend to cost more.

So we do have a good amount, which is 10 grams. We do have the variety of offering both whey in the chocolate and malt and the plant -based, which is, as I said, a sunflower seed protein. Very, very high quality, complete protein from sunflower seeds in the jazza berry, the mango, and the trio. So we focus on the protein. Most consumers do want to see that protein option as it does add, you know, it adds more of a completeness.

to the product in terms of incorporating it as a pre -event meal or just an overall healthy source of complete, somewhat more complete nutrition throughout the day. But you also have consumers that are very aware of sugar. So one of the things that makes Jam Bar unique is that we don't use, we don't use fake sugars, we don't use sugar substitutes and we don't use manufactured sugars, which I mentioned is a sugar that doesn't exist in nature, but that is created through either a chemical or enzymatic process.

such as a brown rice syrup or tapioca syrup or tapioca fiber, or tapioca solids, we only want to call it, it's the same thing. So we use a maple syrup, right? So we know maple syrup is tasty and it's expensive. And so we want to have the best product, so we use the best sugar. So we have the carb situation, we also have complex and simple carbs with Jam Bar, so you're gonna have more of a steady release of the energy, you're not gonna have like a candy bar, super.

Brent Peterson (21:03.31)
Yeah.

Jennifer Maxwell (21:13.778)
blood sugar spike or something like that because we do have simple and complex carbs plus we have the protein and we have some fiber so comprehensive.

Brent Peterson (21:23.182)
Yeah, it sounds great. So, you know, going into this in looking at the rest of the year and going into next year, what are, what are your plans for Jambar? What are your, what are your new products that you can share if any? What are you, what are you innovating and what are you excited about?

Jennifer Maxwell (21:40.978)
Yeah, new products just getting getting tropical tree out there into the market. So we launched in 2021. So we are a pretty young company. So really, it's the matter of really focusing on our distribution, focusing on where we can introduce consumers to Jam bar. So that's a big focus for this year and next year. In terms of new products, I can say we will we will most likely do a small bar. So a small version.

I'm not going to tell you what it's going to be called. It's really going to be cool. So that'll probably come out in 2025. But yeah, we're just really enjoying the journey.

Brent Peterson (22:24.91)
And where can we find you? So you mentioned you're sponsoring or you'll be part of Big Sur, which is coming up in a couple of weeks. I do race pacing. I'll be at San Diego mission, the mission half. Do you have a plan for a bunch of expos or where can we find you?

Jennifer Maxwell (22:42.77)
Yeah, so we're in California, we're available in a lot of the major grocery stores. I can mention them, but we're going to be in Whole Foods in May. So we're at Molly's Stone's, Nugget, Safeway, Rayleigh's, Good Earth, a lot of smaller grocery stores like Andy's or Oliver's. Of course, we're on Amazon. That's easy to find us, right? We're on Amazon. We're also at JamBar .com. You can order direct.

And we're in a lot of coffee shops. So, widely available. We're nationwide. So we do have a distribution fresh market and Earth Fair on the East Coast. So that's, that's going well there. Looking at events, I think Big Sur Marathon is actually on the 30th or 28th of April. We're going to be at the San Diego Half Marathon on April 14th.

So that's a big event in San Diego. I'm actually going out to, dang it, you're gonna be there, right? We're going out to, my team and I are going to the Penn Relays. So we're gonna be at the Penn Relays, right? That's a big event. That's gonna be on April 25th and 26th and 27th. Let's see, what else we got coming up? We've got the Ogden Marathon in May.

Brent Peterson (23:43.79)
I'll be there.

Brent Peterson (23:50.958)
Okay.

Jennifer Maxwell (24:05.234)
in Ogden, Utah, we've got the La Jolla half and 5k in San Diego on May 18th.

Santa Barbara, half marathon, May 10th and 11th. And then a lot of very small events too, where you just have, you know, a few hundred runners or bikers or participants, things like that.

Brent Peterson (24:27.534)
That's awesome. Jennifer, as we close out the podcast, I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything you like. What would you like to plug today?

Jennifer Maxwell (24:38.45)
Oh, okay. I want to plug, congrats to every musician on the planet of the earth. I just love music and musicians are a very special group of people who dedicate their lives to focusing on a craft and providing enjoyment for other people and enjoyment for themselves and their fellow musicians.

Brent Peterson (25:02.862)
That's awesome. I'm a musician, I'm a pianist. My son plays in a band and my daughter's in a number of operas right now. So we are also a family of musicians. I appreciate that. I can definitely appreciate the struggle of a musician, especially one that's trying to earn a living at it. But also there's an enjoyment in it and I know that...

Jennifer Maxwell (25:13.074)
Alright. That is a little cool.

Jennifer Maxwell (25:26.386)
That's right.

Brent Peterson (25:30.446)
our family enjoys just participating in those events and no matter what they are. So Jennifer, thank you so much for being here today. It's been such a great conversation and I'll make sure I'll get to Jam Bar in the show notes and any other of the events you're going to be at as much as I can in the show notes. And I appreciate you. Thank you.

Jennifer Maxwell (25:51.25)
Okay. Thank you so much. Have a great day.