Locals Create Health Bars, Team Up With Whole Foods Market
Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter
MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- You can call it the little bar that could. It's the Shanti Bar - a 100% raw, organic, vegan , gluten free plant based superfood-packed protein bar that comes in eight flavors.
The Shanti Bar is the brainchild of Ashanty Williams and Lauren Feingold. They met at their gym in 2012 when Ashanty, who was attending culinary school, came to the gym with her healthy handmade bars.
"I started making them out of my house with my little Cuisinart. I got to the point I was making 400 bars a day because I got so many orders. Everyone loved them and how fresh they were," Williams said.
Lauren is also a chef.
"I tried them after a workout and I was blown away" Lauren explained. "There are so many bars out there but no tasty bar like this that tasted delicious, then how well it made you feel...It was a whole experience people were craving."
Soon Lauren saw a business opportunity.
"She saw how people were after me when I came with my bags with the bars. She said this is something and why don't we start as business, so we started selling in local stores and we saw there was a turn-around," Ashanty said.
The business grew so fast and the demand so high - they knew they needed a real distribution center where they could produce, label and store these superfoods that have ingredients in them such as golden berries, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, cacao and the always coveted superfood goji berries.
"What's so great about a goji berry,"CBS4's Lisa Petrillo asked. "Goji berries are known in China as the fountain of
"Goji berries are known in China as the fountain of youth," said Lauren.
It was crucial there would be no cross contamination
"It was about studying and looking at what it took to make a facility and packaging and how to package a product with the correct material. All those things went into it. That was 2012 . Now we're in 2016 and now we're in business," Lauren said.
In business? Yes! Shanti Bars are now paleo, paleo vegan and Kosher certified. The bars are made daily out of their warehouse in southwest Miami-Dade County. This summer Shanti Bars were rolled out into Whole Foods Market all over South Florida and Naples.
Yes! Shanti Bars are now paleo, paleo vegan and Kosher certified. The bars are made daily out of their warehouse in SW Dade. This summer Shanti Bars were rolled out into Whole Foods Market all over South Florida and Naples.
"In addition to Whole Foods, we're soon announcing another major nationwide retailer. We've scaled our production 600 % overnight," Lauren said. "It's great to see the girls here working and being able to provide them a job makes me happy and hearing the feedback of how much they enjoy the product and how happy our customers are that they find it," Said Ashanty.
