Grenade: We invented ‘good’ protein bars
It is difficult to walk around a supermarket without being screamed at by a collection of very similar labels on very different aisles: High-protein yogurt! Protein powder bread! All natural high-protein ketchup!
As the final social-media-endorsed macronutrient standing, protein’s stock has soared from a good-to-have to a must-buy in the last decade.
Somewhat inexplicably, Marks and Spencer even sell a high-protein spaghetti (suitable for vegetarians) made with pea flour and semolina.
Grenade, which makes low-sugar, high-protein snack bars designed to be “indistinguishable” from chocolate bars, is both an early adopter and a driver of protein’s image overhaul.
“Protein bars weren’t really a thing until we came along,” founder Alan Barratt says.
“Years ago, protein bars were just like dog chews. If you had something that was better for you, it tasted like it was better for you… We tried to get rid of that,” he adds.
The approach has quite clearly taken off: In the 15 years Grenade has been around, Barratt and his business partner have taken it from ground zero to a £600m company.
‘It still feels like we’re just getting started’
After dropping out of school at 15, Barratt spent four years working at a gym before turning to entrepreneurship: “I learnt a lot about the health and fitness industry… as well as protein [and] the benefits of going to the gym,” he says.
He set up Grenade as a supplements business, later turning to protein bars when it had “become it all could be” in 2013.
Nine years later, the company was bought by Cadbury’s owner, Mondelez (Baratt is no longer CEO but remains heavily involved). Now, Grenade has approximately 240,000 distribution locations in the UK, selling an estimated 1 billion protein bars to date.
“When I first worked at my first gym on work experience…you could smell them making the chocolate at Cadbury – a lot of the people who trained in the gym worked at Cadbury,” Barratt says.
“Did we manifest a partner in Cadbury?” he says. “You get opportunities throughout life, and you know, it’s up to us to take them.”
One of the especially lucrative aspects of the deal with Mondelez was permission to use Cadbury’s brands – an Oreo bar is one of the company’s best sellers, with more collaborations in the works. Almost Barratt is tight-lipped about the brand names.
“It still feels like we’re just getting started,” Barratt laughs. “We want to be the best selling bar in the world.”
It’s ambitious and a little cocky, but you get the sense Barratt not only means it in complete seriousness but will probably make it happen – when he and his then-wife were getting the business off the ground, they worked 18-hour days and grudgingly took £500 a month out of the company “at the request of our accountant”.
“We just said that actually, if we lose… We’ve worked our hardest. No one could have ever said we didn’t give our best shot,” he says. “This is my baby”.
Grenade and the protein brigade
High-protein intake has become increasingly prevalent in the social media ecosystem over the last decade, gaining momentum during the pandemic, and has shifted the focus from weightlifting to become intertwined with the concept of a healthy diet.
In the last year alone, 43 per cent of Brits increased their protein intake, and 62 per cent of those aged 16-34 now consume more protein than they did previously.
Certain products enjoy elevated status in the online grocery aisle (TikTok has somehow made cottage cheese cool).
“The trend is being driven by younger consumers and if you look on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, there’s a major trend for influencers posting videos of their culinary protein-packed creations and talking about these foods that offer specific nutritional benefits.
“And that trend is encouraging the new growing interest… [and] influencing retailers like ourselves to stock more of these products,” one of Tesco’s buying managers, Hollie Bulmer, has said.
But Barratt is adamant that the turn to protein is not a trend but representative of a better public attitude to health and fitness – so long as we separate genuinely higher-protein products with those that “just make [it] a bit of a token.”
“I think consumers are really savvy nowadays, especially with social media, and you need a meaningful amount of protein for it to really have a benefit,” he says.
He also cautions against putting too much pressure on a ‘good’ diet. “I had ice cream last night. I had chocolate yesterday. I’ll probably have chocolate tomorrow, but, you know, I won’t do it daily.”
Diets “sound temporary”, he says. “What happens after the diet? If people just make better choices, even just 50 per cent of the time, collectively, it makes a big difference.”