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If you caught the reel last week you know how this started.
I saw Promix selling protein rice crispy treats, went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what snack I'd remake, & somehow landed on a fiber donut.
Which sounds insane, so this is me showing my work, plus the formulator notes I promised if you want to be crazy and launch a food product.
The Rice Crispy Treat Doing $125K a Month
s/o Particl
I tapped into Particl through Claude & pulled Promix's Puff Bars one flavor at a time.
The vanilla one did $156K in August, & it has cleared 150 bands every single month since March. Winner!
Oh yeah by the way that's one flavor.
Promix sells almost 20 flavors (birthday cake, snickerdoodle, cookies & cream), & when I added the whole line together the Puff Bars did about $900K last month.
For a rice crispy treat with whey in it…….
The Promix Hero Product is One to STUDY
Promix also sells a gut health powder called Debloat. Prebiotic plus probiotic, you stir it into water. Across all its flavors it did roughly $2.1M in August.
This brand is an elite one to study honestly. The founder story mixed with their unique mechanism ingredient of the Baobob seed is a cheat code for content & ads.
Great episode with founder on Sweat Equity podcast HERE
Promix is basically running two businesses, a snack your brain already wants & a powder that makes your stomach feel better.
BUTTTTTTTT nobody has put those two things in the same wrapper yet……
Lets cook a little bit.
ZOOM OUT
Here's the trend stuff I promised.
In the reel I said Particl Trends has fiber up about 1,000% over the last three months. That's the chart above, & honestly it's what sent me on this terror.
The sales side backs it up too. Particl's Digestive Support category, basically all the gut health supplements, did about $7.7M in March.
By August it was doing $17.7M a month, so it more than doubled in five months. FIBER IS HOT!
It's showing up outside Particl too. FoodNavigator reported last month that Google searches for "fibermaxxing" jumped 115% in 90 days.
This is the same movie we watched with protein. A few years ago protein on the label was a flex, & now it's on popcorn lmaoooo
Protein is table stakes now. My read is fiber becomes the next word brands fight to put on the front of the box, & the snack aisle hasn't caught up yet!
Four Formats I'd Actually Build
I'm not going head to head with Promix on protein. Here's where my head went with fiber instead:
1. The fiber donut. The one from the reel & still my favorite. A donut is the least healthy looking thing in the bakery case, which is exactly why a gut friendly one gets attention. YouBar already co-manufactures protein donuts, so the equipment exists & you'd be changing the macro instead of inventing a product.
2. The funky bar. The safe route, with a personality. Bars are the easiest thing to get made, so the entire fight happens on the outside. Weird colors, a name a 24 year old would text their friend, packaging that looks nothing like Fiber One.
3. The shape play. Look back at that leaderboard, gummies are already winning over in supplements. So go crazy with the shapes. Fiber in a sour worm, a mini cookie, a cereal piece. Promix already proved people will pay up for a shape they recognize.
4. The topping. This is the one I keep coming back to. Crunchy fiber clusters or sprinkles you throw on yogurt, oats, ice cream, a smoothie bowl. You'd be riding on top of something people already eat every morning, which is a much easier habit to join than a brand new one to start.
Same fiber. Four completely different brands.
How To Actually Find a Formulator
Real talk first, this is much easier said than done, & food is a lot less forgiving than a t-shirt.
The $8K I mentioned in the reel is a formulation quote, the part where someone turns your idea into a recipe that survives a production line.
The first production run is a different number. Snackteva, a snack bar consultancy, says a bar or snack typically needs $80K to $150K all in to get to a first run. Know that going in.
Here's how I'd find the right person:
1. Start with a co-packer that has R&D in house. A lot of co-manufacturers will formulate for you if you produce with them. YouBar makes protein donuts & rice crispy treats already. Whatever's Healthy does bars with minimums as low as a few thousand units.
2. Hire a freelance food scientist. Kolabtree lists food scientists by specialty, & rates I saw were around $185 an hour. Look for someone who has done bakery or bars specifically, because a beverage person will learn on your dime.
3. Go where food scientists hang out. The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) has local chapters, & r/foodscience is surprisingly helpful if you post a clear brief.
4. Bring a brief, not a vibe. Target fiber per serving, max sugar, the cost per unit you need to hit, a store bought product you want the texture to feel like, & where it's going to be sold. That's what a formulator needs to quote you. (The weapon below writes this for you.)
5. Ask about the fiber blend. This is the weird one. Load up on one type of fiber & people get bloated, which is a hilarious way to kill a gut health brand. The industry is already calling the fix "fibermixxing," blending a few fiber types so it's easier on the stomach. Ask every formulator how they'd handle it, & if they don't have an answer, keep looking.
Weapon of the Week: The Formulator Brief
Most formulators won't quote you off a DM that says "healthy donut but fiber." This prompt turns the napkin idea into the one pager they actually need.
Copy & edit this:
"I want to launch [PRODUCT FORMAT] with [NUTRIENT] as the hero, sold [WHERE] to [WHO].
1. Pick 3 products my customer already buys that I should benchmark for taste & texture, & tell me what each one gets right.
2. Write a target nutrition panel per serving: calories, [NUTRIENT] grams, protein, & sugar. Flag anything that will be hard to hit at the same time.
3. Suggest 2 or 3 ingredient approaches to hit the [NUTRIENT] number, & call out the risks for taste, texture, shelf life, & digestion.
4. Estimate a realistic retail price & the cost per unit I'd need to land to keep a healthy margin.
5. Turn all of it into a one page brief I can send to a food formulator or co-packer, plus 5 questions I should ask on the first call.
Be specific. Assume I have never made food at scale."
It works for any nutrient, so if you think the next big one is magnesium or electrolytes, swap it in.
Source It
Places to start the conversation this week:
YouBar (protein donuts, bars, rice crispy treats, R&D in house)
Whatever's Healthy (bar co-packing, low minimums)
Kolabtree (freelance food scientists)
IFT (Institute of Food Technologists)
Get a formulator on a call before you spend a dollar on branding. With food, the recipe decides whether anybody buys it twice.
And to close out another brief, the weekly word from The Muse himself, Rick Rubin:
"Look for what you notice but no one else sees."
Til next time soldier,
Carson
P.S. If you have ever formulated a donut, please reply to this email, I have so many questions. Everyone else, I break down brands like this on camera too »»» Subscribe to the YouTube channel.
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