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The PowerBar Story

In 1983, Brian Maxwell, a Canadian Olympic marathon runner and distance running coach at the University of California, Berkeley, was leading a marathon in England. Having consumed only energy drinks on the day of the race, he reached the 21 mile mark and bonked -- to the point where he experienced tunnel vision, dizziness and was forced to walk much of the rest of the race.

The experience led Brian to begin a quest for improved sources of energy for himself and his team to perform better. He was not interested in drugs or artificial stimulants. Instead, he envisioned foods that would be based on scientific research and use healthy, natural ingredients to deliver sustained energy through the optimal blend of nutrients that human beings need to perform at their best.

Brian teamed up with a Ph.D. chemist and Jennifer Biddulph, runner and nutrition and food science student, to work on the concept of an "energy bar." They wanted something that would be convenient, portable and taste good. They also wanted it to be healthy, nutritious and easy to digest. It had to deliver the correct combination of simple and complex carbohydrates, protein, fat and vitamins and minerals to optimize performance.

A challenge was that experts in the food industry believed it was impossible to make a "healthy" food bar because of the large amounts of saturated fats needed to lubricate the machinery in the food bar manufacturing process. Undaunted, the team spent three years developing not only a recipe, but a manufacturing process for an energy bar that could be made without added fats. Hundreds of formulations were developed and tested and the successes were shared with local athletes.

Soon, requests were pouring in for "those power bars" and the name eventually stuck. In 1986, PowerBar Inc. was founded. The first 50,000 PowerBar energy bars in Malt-Nut and Chocolate flavors went on sale in January 1987, as Maxwell and Biddulph ran the company together out of their basement. By 1988, they were married and the company began hiring employees.

Over the years, hundreds of championships have been won and records set by athletes fueled by PowerBar. And millions are now part of "Team PowerBar," having discovered that PowerBar provides healthy, nutritious energy.

The PowerBar product line has grown as PowerBar has stayed in touch with the needs that athletes and active people have for energy in many different forms -- and as scientific knowledge about sports nutrition has expanded. The result is that PowerBar now has four distinct lines of energy bar products, a line of energy gels and, new for 1999, energy drinks.

PowerBar's goal is to improve human performance by providing nutritious, healthy energy products and by educating people about nutrition so that they can manage their own health. Thank you for reading this and helping us achieve it!

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