Hockey player preps energy bars for production line
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Granola bars weren’t cutting it for Fabian Granqvist.
A professional hockey player and recent college grad, he craved grab-and-go snacks made from whole foods to power him through training. Nothing fit the bill on store shelves, so he made his own, and soon was supplying his Indiana Tech hockey team in Fort Wayne with the bars. He recognized a huge market opportunity, switched his major to business, and is now on the doorstep of moving his small batch production system to a manufacturing line to feed the masses.
“I had teammates who would eat five or six Quaker granola bars before games on the bus; your blood sugar will spike right away, then dip,” says Granqvist. “That’s not good, because you’re going to burn more of the glycogen in your muscles to recover from the dip.”
Granqvist knew his teammates—and athletes in general—needed his bars. He’d been tweaking recipes since he was a teenager living in his native country of Sweden, where students who want to play sports competitively typically move from home to attend a sports-specific high school. Living on his own for the first time with an athlete-sized appetite, he soon realized snacking on highly processed foods was convenient, but not helping his performance on the ice.
“It’s been shown that eating something with more fiber and slow-releasing carbohydrates, like resistant starch, before a game or practice will help you retain more glycogen in your muscles, which means you have more in store to perform at a higher level for longer,” says Granqvist. “Eating lower glycemic index [foods] won’t spike your blood sugar. Therefore, you can have a higher performance level over a longer period.”
As a student worker on the school’s maintenance crew—which also sampled his creations—Granqvist connected with Smile More Meal Prep in Fort Wayne and used the commercial kitchen to develop his recipes. Granqvist has landed on two products that are low on the glycemic index and made with a short list of whole foods: a protein muffin and energy bites. The U.S.-sourced ingredients include nuts, dates, oats, dark chocolate, flaxseeds and natural peanut butter.
“My main issue with conventional protein bars and energy snacks is that they contain a lot of highly-refined sugar or sweeteners that can cause indigestibility and stomach issues,” says Granqvist. “And they have all these other processed proteins or grains to make up for taste or texture when it goes through a manufacturing line.”
Granqvist believes the most important whole food ingredient in the energy bites is dates, which are “the best sweetener, because they have fiber, antioxidants and a low glycemic index while tasting so sweet.” But they can be tricky to use in the manufacturing process, so Granqvist’s next task is working with a specialty bar manufacturer in Chicago to ensure his products can move from small batch production to a manufacturing line, without falling into the same trap as conventional bars.
“I want to make a good tasting bar without having to use all these processed foods,” says Granqvist.
Granqvist says the next step is making sure his bars can be made on a production line without falling into the same trap as other mass-produced bars.
The GrandQvist (pronounced “grand quest”) protein muffin has 12 grams of protein and eight grams of fiber to provide sustained energy for athletes. Granqvist says most college teams are supplied snacks, but “we mostly had Quaker chewy bars,” so he sees a major market opportunity to sell whole food snacks in bulk directly to athletic teams.
“I want to target athletic teams and organizations specifically, so athletes don’t have to worry about going to gas stations or convenience stores to buy bars or snacks,” says Granqvist. “The industry is very fragmented, which means anyone can gain some market share if they have a good product and good marketing.”
Granqvist says he plans to sell whole food snacks in bulk directly to athletic teams.
Granqvist won Indiana Tech’s Innovation Challenge, and after recently completing the Summer Startup program at The Mill in Bloomington, he’s aiming to supply IU athletic teams with his products. Hungry to give his products even more credibility, Granqvist will soon begin nutrition classes with Purdue University Global.
While perfecting his snacks for the production line, it’s likely the Blue Ridge Bobcats, the Virginia hockey team he’ll soon begin playing for, will be his next unofficial focus group.
“This bar isn’t just for ‘big business,’” says Granqvist. “It’s solving a problem, and that’s what I’m most excited about.”