Local Women Develop Nutritional Snack Bars for Children
Excerpted from The Ark (November 23, 2005), by Diane Smith
Most mothers want the best for their children, and Deborah Luster and Chris Elders are no exception. Two years ago, when the two sisters realized how many youngsters were eating adult energy bars, which can have high fructose corn syrup and way too much protein for kids, they decided to formulate a bar just for children. They called it Can Do Kid.
"Can Do Kid is not intended to be a mail," explained Luster, "just a healthy snack for kids on the go." This is a bar that has ingredients meant for children four years old and up. It's 70 percent organic with no high fructose corn syrup and no trans fats. Regular energy bars can have up to 24 grams of protein, almost a child's entire daily requirement. Can Do Kid has nine grams of protein and approximately 25 to 30 percent of a child's RDA of 17 essential vitamins.
Although the idea of manufacturing a bar for children had been brewing in their minds for some time, neither sister is new to the business world.
Elders, a Cal Poly graduate in business communications, was marketing director for Annie's Homegrown natural and organic food company. Once it became a West Coast presence, she moved on and founded an organic wholesale bakery and bread business named Marin Baking Company. Years later, she had her partner buy her out, and she left to join the high tech world in Silicon Valley. When son Jack was born (now a Reed first grader), she stopped working; two years later her son Luke was born.
Luster was a business/economics major at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Once she established herself in the financial world, she became president of Annie's Homegrown, turning the small company into a national enterprise. In 1996, her first daughter, Sarah, was born, and she spent her early years attending board meetings with her mom.
Two years later, when Luster went into labor with her second daughter, Emily (in the middle of a Newsweek phone interview), she decided to step down from her post "to do the mom thing" and to coach people starting their own businesses. In 2000, son John arrived to complete the family.
Both Luster and Elders are high-energy individuals who believe that 80 percent of achievement is a positive attitude. They work daily to instill this in their own families and resolved to do the same in the greater community.
Their goal is to change a child's thinking from "I can't" to "I can do anything!" They also were aware of the lack of nutritious energy snacks that were available for children. Combining these two facts, they came up with the idea of a child's energy bar that promoted the "Can Do" image.
Working with a nutritionist, they formulated an energy bar containing children's portions of vitamins and protein. Next came focus groups, using kids in second, third and fifth grades. Here they discovered children did not like either fruit or peanut butter flavors. They loved cookies and cream, and they loved chocolate. So, these are the two flavors of Can Do Kid bars.
With the cheetah as a logo on the cover, each package contains two 20-gram bars, in case the child gets filled up after a few bites. The company also sells bumper stickers, shoelaces, T-shirts and bracelets (100 percent of bracelet profits go to nonprofit organizations). "Our mission is to inspire a can-do culture by creating products and programs that support healthy children," said Luster.
The first bars came out on August 11 of this year, and the partners set a goal of having two accounts by October 11. Instead, they had 22 accounts nationwide, with Paradise Foods in Corte Madera as their flagship store. Locally, Can Do Kid can be found at Paradise Foods and at the Boardwalk Market.
"Kids today," said Elders, "need healthy energy snacks that also taste good." With Can Do Kid bars, parents now have a choice.
Deborah Luster and Chris Elders are excited about their latest business success, but their main goal is giving youngsters a positive outlook with the Can Do Kid's mantra: "It's not about age - it's about attitude."
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