The LÄRABAR Story

It started out as just a hike, no different than countless others I've taken into the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Little did I know I was about to come up with a mountain of an idea: combine simple ingredients such as fruits and nuts to create a food product that's tasty, wholesome, and convenient.

In that instant, in May 2000, LÄRABAR® was born.

After scouring the aisles of grocery stores and noting popular flavors of ice cream and cookies, I delved into my own product development. Natural foods, I believed, should be fun and enjoyable as well as good for you.

Looking back, the best lessons are to always listen to your intuition and follow your passions in life. Success and building a meaningful business are marathons, and not sprints. Don’t be afraid to be different and innovate. Try new things even if you don’t know what you are doing! Be sure to have fun and surround yourself with people who support your dreams.

With friends and family serving as focus groups, I tinkered with recipes until a consensus on yummi-ness was reached. The next step was to launch a company to market what would initially be five delicious LÄRABAR® flavors:

I also assembled a sophisticated manufacturing arm... what amounted to be a Cuisinart™ and a rolling pin. The first batch of bars I produced for retail had to be sealed by hand - all 500 of them! Thank goodness we have machines for that job today. After all, we're producing millions of LÄRABAR bars every year! They are a wholesome indulgence you can feel good about eating.