We were lucky to catch up with Patter Gersuk recently and have shared our conversation below.

Patter, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I have always loved food and cooking! When I had my children I made their baby food, believing that pure, whole food is more nutritious and tastes better. When they were older and needed convenient snacks, I made these energy bars.
In 2017 my son-in-law Connor, who was a D-1 lacrosse player in college, encouraged me to sell the bars as he said there was nothing like them on the market: delicious, whole-food bars that actually sustained him and didn’t upset his stomach. I tested the market at the Cherry Creek Farmer’s Market that summer and received a terrific response from the bars. I launched Patterbar in 2018 and with students from Johnson and Wales Culinary School, started producing the bars

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am originally from Michigan, went to undergraduate at Boston College, and then received my master’s in Public Administration from Columbia University in New York. As I said I have always loved cooking and when we moved to London for my husband’s job, I attended Le Cordon Bleu. from there, we moved to San Francisco and I began my journey in the culinary world: a prep cook at a small French restaurant, and catering. We then moved to Boston and I worked at Williams Sonoma teaching cooking lessons, then opened my own small cooking school. After this, I was a savory chef at a cafe and then went to work for Whole Foods as a staff educator and local forager. I tried many avenues in the culinary world and learned a lot. Did I say I was doing all this while raising three kids?!

When we moved to Denver in 2015, I again started looking for options and felt that starting my own business was the best avenue which led me to testing the market with three different product lines at the farmer’s market: premium baked sweets, savory snacks and the no-added sugar energy bars. I found that customers wanted the no-added sugar energy bars twice as much as the other options. We launched Patterbars in 2018.

We are a female-owned and family-run energy bar company based in Denver. My daughter, Victoria Anderson, and I run the company on a daily basis. Unlike the majority of energy bars on the market, Patterbars are 100% whole food with no added sugar– no emulsifiers like soy lecithin, no stabilizers like tapioca starch, no syrups, no protein ”blends”, no “natural flavors”– just 100% whole food. We use real lemon zest: not lemon flavor or lemon oil.
The purity and quality of our ingredients– and therefore the taste– is what sets Patterbars apart. I am most proud of the fact that I won’t compromise on our ingredients despite the urging of many people that is easier and cheaper to not use whole-food ingredients. I can always feel good about the fact that we are providing a truly nutritious, delicious, and convenient snack. Patterbars are made the same way and with the same ingredients I used to make them for my children.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

We started by renting commercial kitchen space and I hired Johnson and Wales culinary students to help me make the bars by hand. We did everything from scratch as I did as a chef: grated the lemon zest and ginger, roasting all of our nuts and seeds, making our nut and coconut butter.

After about 2-1/2 years I started looking for a co-packer because we couldn’t keep up with demand. The commercial kitchen where we were renting space started a co-packing division so it was a simple transition and I oversaw every production run in the beginning. Then we ran into a huge issue when the co-packer left our fresh lemon zest out at room temperature for five days and of course, it molded and we had to dispose of 10,000 bars! Not only did we not have any of the Blueberry Lemon bars as a result and it was the start of the Farmers Market season, but this co-packer, Colorado Kitchen Share, would not pay us for their mistake so we were out thousands of dollars.

It was a nightmare and almost forced us to close the business. We had to scramble and try and find another co-packer, which was difficult because we needed a special machine. and Patterbar is a small company that couldn’t meet large manufacturing facility’s minimums. We finally found a co-packer in Spokane, Washington which presented a whole different set of challenges that I had to figure out. Since that time we have moved our production back to Denver as a co-packer here now has the correct machines for our product.

It has also been a challenge to maintain the quality and integrity of our product because we go against the grain of the industry. when making the bars on large co-packing equipment, many companies use chemical or ultra-proceesed additives to assure consistency and long shelf life. We don’t use any stabilizers, emulsifiers, “natural flavors”, food powders, etc– we only use 100% pure whole food ingredients.
These ingredients are harder to come by and also more expensive. But this is what makes us different and I will never compromise but it has been an ongoing challenge to compete in an over-saturated market against companies like General Mills that have unlimited marketing budgets and make all sorts of nutritional claims.

The biggest lessons I have learned about manufacturing a product is to stay true to your original idea and search for co-packers who are good people first!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Authenticity. Patterbar is built on 100% whole food ingredients and consumers know what they are– we don’t have to explain, make health promises or inflate our benefits. When we sell at farmers markets, we lay out the actual ingredients we use for each flavor on a custom made table to show customers the only ingredients we use. This is impactful and we will never compromise our ingredients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.patterbar.com
• Instagram: @patterbr
• Facebook: patterbardenver
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/Mary M (Patter) Gerwsuk
• Youtube: @patterbar