From volleyball courts to retail shelves: How Act Bar’s founder is growing her upcycled snack brand

Launched last year, Act Bar offers a line of Upcycled Certified vegan snack bars in Cashew Coconut, Peanut Butter and Pecan Smores, available online through the brand’s website and primarily on the West Coast, including select Earthbar stores around Los Angeles.  

Each bar contains 12 grams of protein and is formulated with Upcycled Foods’ ReGrained SuperGrain+, an upcycled flour created from spent grains left over from the beer brewing process. Act Bar also donates a meal to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank for every bar purchased.

Allen started Act Bar after the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted her professional volleyball career. During that time, she saw her sister — a teacher from Spokane, Wash. — struggle to secure healthy foods for her students who heavily relied on free school lunch programs.  

"I started doing more research to understand how this country — with so much abundance — is still having this large issue with food insecurity. I learned about the relationship between food waste and food insecurity and thought I am at this crossroads with volleyball where I think it is time to move on. I found something that I am really passionate about and wanted to create something that was a vessel for education on this issue in the same way that my sister educated me on it," she added.

Consumers are still ‘a little bit confused by upcycling’

Act Bar also is educating consumers about the benefits of upcycled ingredients. The upcycled food and beverage trend has gained popularity, but many consumers are unsure of the benefit, Allen noted. 

“Compared to two years ago, people have become way more aware [of upcycled foods], but what we are learning as a company ... there are still so many consumers that are a little bit confused by upcycling. They have heard of it ... but do not quite understand the meaning of it, or they have a misunderstanding of it. And that really has been a part of our mission as the education side of upcycled ingredients,” Allen said.

Certified Upcycled chips, pretzels and snacks saw $10 million in sales, increasing 153.5%, for the 52 weeks ending Nov. 5, according to SPINS data​.

Building a CPG brand for the first time

As Allen builds her brand, she is navigating the challenges of running a startup CPG food and beverage brand for the first time, including expanding retail distribution and working with co-manufacturers.

Like many startups, Act Bar found it difficult to secure a co-manufacturer that could balance producing products quickly but did not have so high of a minimum order quantity that unsold product would become a business expense, she explained.

Allen has bootstrapped her business and will seek funding in 2025 to scale her business, including expanding into national retailers.

“This time next year, we will be seeking more funding, but [we want to see] how big we can scale this on our own so when we are looking for funding we can get a little more bang for our buck," she added.