LAS VEGAS — Lisa Matar attended the 2019 Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco to explore her ideas for the food business. In 2023, she will be exhibiting at a show in Las Vegas and serving as the founder of Health Bear Food Company in Monte, Calif. Her Sereno, a manufacturer and marketer of convenient oatmeal-based meal solution cups. I was promoting an idea. From idea to reality, Matar’s business her plans have evolved. This is due to the pandemic and other market forces that have made her acclimated.
“My original plan was to sell a portable product at a Silicon Valley company,” she said in an interview at the Winter Fancy Food Show in mid-January. “We thought this was more of a foodservice business, but the pandemic has clearly brought us to a halt and we have shifted our efforts to Amazon and other platforms.”
The company currently has three inventory management units, sold and distributed throughout Northern and Southern California by UNFI. In addition to Amazon, Health Bear’s products are sold and distributed on online platforms such as Pod Foods and Mabel.
The premise behind Mr. Matar’s business is to elevate oatmeal with convenient, sugar-free applications.
“I thought oatmeal was boring,” she said. “I’ve always wondered why everyone copies each other. Can’t we be creative?”
Currently available flavors include Coconut, Cardamom and Date. Blueberry, Almond, Lemon. and plain.
“It’s not hard to look in the spice cabinet to see what you can put in oatmeal,” she said. We wanted to offer a variety of flavors using
The flavors may be unique, but Matar wanted to sell a familiar product.
“There are a lot of products out there that don’t get a yes so easily,” she said. “It’s really easy to say yes to this[Health Bear]. Everyone eats breakfast and a lot of people want a healthy diet.”
While some competing oatmeal products are loaded with sugar, Health Bear sweetens it with monk fruit. Other ingredients in the formula include chia, flax, hemp and pea proteins. This means the product contains up to 12 grams of protein, is sugar-free and high in fiber.
First day of business. Matar is the only employee, but he works with co-packers, marketing services companies and brokers. She has also not sought outside funding from venture capital investors.
The biggest challenge she faces is scaling with limited resources.
“The good thing about this brand is that it’s convenient and flexible,” she said. “I can continue my expansion in retail. , we need to understand what happens next.”
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