It’s not all about coming up with our own great ideas involving oats, apples and chocolate chips at Focused Nutrition. We also work with a number of partners on a whole range of delicious, nutritious and healthy products through the contract manufacturing side of our business. It gives us the opportunity to collaborate with people and companies who share our passion. As master bakers, we can often provide that last important ingredient to turn someone’s great snack idea into a commercial success.
We recently reported on the VO2 vegan snack that we helped launch at the most difficult moment imaginable, just as the nation was going into lockdown. Now, we are pleased to let you know about another successful collaboration with Sam and the rest of his team at N-FUSE.
Introducing N-FUSE
In case you’ve not encountered them before, N-FUSE provides a range of premium sports nutrition products that include snacks, supplements and equipment. The company works directly alongside some of the nation’s top elite and professional athletes, and sponsors a number of cycle teams.
Regular visitors to these pages will immediately see some similarities with our ethos at Focused Nutrition. We started working alongside N-FUSE a little over a year ago and helped them develop their first energy bar.
Continuous improvement
Another thing we have in common with the N-FUSE team is an inability to stand still. Almost as soon as the energy bar hit the shelves, Managing Director Sam and his colleagues started to look at ways to improve the product by seeking feedback from the athletes and customers who were using it.
We were gratified to hear that the responses were all completely positive when it came to taste, texture and performance. One area for improvement that arose, however, was to reduce the size from 100g to something a little smaller.
We were only too happy to work alongside N-FUSE to create a 60g bar. Sam tells us that since launch, it “has gone exceptionally well with our athletes and customers and has become a key product in the N-FUSE range.”
New look wrappers
As well as redesigning the size of the bar, we have also helped N-FUSE launch a whole new printed wrapper. This area of a product launch is something that sounds simple, but can often end up as one of the biggest pain points, especially for a small business. We think the new design looks fabulous, and the N-FUSE customer base clearly agrees, as the bars have been flying off the shelves.
This year has presented challenges that none of us could have expected back in January, especially for smaller scale manufacturers. But we have found that when like-minded businesses collaborate, there is no limit to the obstacles we can overcome. We look forward to continuing our partnership with N-FUSE and to building other new relationships as we continue through 2020. If your business could benefit from our contract manufacturing services, do get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.