NOTE: AI Generated

Zachary Cartwright [00:00:00]:

I'm Zachary Cartwright. This is water in food.

Rob Rebich [00:00:03]:

Today.

Zachary Cartwright [00:00:03]:

My guest is Rob Rebich, who is the co-founder of Aupa, a company dedicated to providing their customers with convenient, nutritious, meat-based snacks that are free from industrial additives. His mission is to empower small local regenerative farms and ranches by sourcing local ingredients so that his company is part of the change that will improve the entire food system. Aupa believes that the answer to a healthy diet is to include animal products. And Rob is proud to introduce the Aupa Bar. Let's hear what Rob has to say on this episode of Water and Food. So, hey, Rob, thanks for being here today.

Rob Rebich [00:00:37]:

No problem. Glad to be here.

Zachary Cartwright [00:00:39]:

We've had a few other companies on the show before, like Clif Bar and Kael Bar. We work with lots of other bar companies, but yours really stood out to me, and I'm happy that you're here to talk about it. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your company.

Rob Rebich [00:00:54]:

So, yeah, I'm previously an electrical engineer for as long as I can remember, COVID hit, and that brought a bunch of disruption to our lives, and we decided to do something different. And about that same time, we were kind of falling to what we call the Food and Health rabbit hole, where we are really eyeing everything we are eating and really digging into the nitty gritties of all of our food. And so we kind of fell into that rabbit hole and determined that kind of like an animal based approach is kind of the best for us. And before that, I have fallen severely into the financial rabbit hole, which was bitcoin. And so we kind of fused those two together and brought kind of the best meat based snack bar you can get, and you can also pay in bitcoin. And we actually recommend it as we give a discount. And so those kind of the two biggest rabbit holes in my world kind of fused together in about 2022, and we formed ALPA and just went with it.

Zachary Cartwright [00:01:51]:

And were you really passionate about meat products before? Is this something you were working on, was a hobby or how did this come to be?

Rob Rebich [00:02:00]:

So it came to be because we were on a road trip, essentially, and we went through gas station after gas station looking for healthy snacks for our kids. We have two little kids, and if you have little kids, you know how much they want to snack and they're always hungry and they want junk food and junk food, and we're not the type of parents to give our kids junk food. And we were so let down with all the options that were available, even for adults to get, like, good snacks. You go in and the jerky is loaded with food additives and soy sauce and sugars and you name it. So many different things artificial flavorings, yeast extracts, all that kind of stuff. Seed oils. So we started making these bars from a book that we read, and we would just make them for ourselves, and we'd bring them along with us and we'd enjoy them. They're nothing like a sugar bomb, like a Snickers bar.

Rob Rebich [00:02:51]:

It takes a little changing of your palate to get used to something that's natural like this. But we had so much interest from friends and family that they said they wanted to buy some, and we just were making them. And we decided to go all in on it and make a full fledged company out of it.

Zachary Cartwright [00:03:06]:

And is this like a meat mixture or is it meats like the primary ingredients? What do the ingredients look like?

Rob Rebich [00:03:14]:

Right, so the ingredients are beef, tallow, butter and honey. That's our base kind of mixture. And then we spin off two different flavors where we add cranberry pecan and blueberry almond. And we call our base one the Apex Bar. And then we spin it off to the blueberry almond and the cranberry pecan. So we have three flavors right now, and we are working on a no honey option, and that's going to be coming out sometime soon here.

Zachary Cartwright [00:03:42]:

How did you decide on those flavors? So you mentioned blueberry almond and cranberry pecan.

Rob Rebich [00:03:48]:

How did that come to be? Yeah, that was kind of spun off from kind of the Apex flavor being a little too hardcore for everyone. And the Apex is based on kind of a pemekin blend. If you've ever heard of pemekin, the natives and early explorers in the US. And Canada, they relied on this air dried bison with bison sewage that was packed in into tallow, and they packed these leather pouches full of it. And this stuff would hold for decades if stored properly. And it's a complete food. And these explorers would live solely on pemekin. But the thing about it, for our modern day palates, it's not that palatable.

Rob Rebich [00:04:29]:

And it's like, I'd eat it if I was, like, surviving and if I had to, but I'm not going to sit there and snack on just traditional pemekin. And so we decided to add butter and honey into it, and that really brought out the flavor for kind of like a modern day taste buds and stuff.

Zachary Cartwright [00:04:48]:

And so your background is in electrical engineering and then around COVID, you're seeing this lack in the markets, and I see it as well. It's not just kids. I feel like even me, I go into a grocery store, a gas station, I'm trying to find something healthy. And you're right, it's really hard to do. But then you had to make this jump from your engineering background to basically learning about food science and being able to make this product. What are some of the biggest challenges that you came across as you did this?

Rob Rebich [00:05:17]:

So it's kind of learning what the moisture content and water activity were. When I first got into this, I didn't understand the two as anything different. And when I started learning that, thanks to help from you guys, it kind of sparked my interest because I love that kind of stuff. And that was a really fun thing for me to dive into and learned what water activity was. And now I see foods totally different now, now that I kind of have a decent understanding of water activity. And so having a science background kind of helped me with that. And also the process of being compliant with USDA guidelines. I have our dehydrator set up with like a raspberry pi and temperature probes and humidity probes and the software suite that I make all these pretty graphs.

Rob Rebich [00:06:05]:

And the first USDA guy came over here and was kind of blown away with our setup. And I was like, yeah, we're kind of a background in this. And he's like, oh, we're not going to have any problem with you.

Zachary Cartwright [00:06:16]:

Like, with your background. And then really looking into water activity and having a good understanding of that allowed you to take off faster. Generally, some of the things that we look at, especially with bars and water activity, are things like consistency or shelf life, making sure that the product is safe. Maybe you can talk about some of those aspects and how water activity has helped you.

Rob Rebich [00:06:38]:

Yeah, so we try to target under about 0.6 AW. And what's helped us with the water activity is we used to just check our end result. Actually, in the beginning we didn't have a water activity meter, so we were just kind of winging it, which wasn't the best method. And now that we have the meter, we can measure each step of our process. We can measure the incoming ingredients and make sure those are consistent. We can really tweak in our drying process. We can hit the exact hours and temperature we want and then we can take readings right after that. And so we can nail down each individual step of our inputs to our final bar and then we can measure our final bar.

Rob Rebich [00:07:21]:

And one of the interesting things to me that we discovered is we had originally take these bars and we'd form them, we'd put them in the refrigerator to chill and then when we brought them out, they would get a lot of condensation on them. And we didn't have the meter at that point to kind of gauge where we're at. But once we got the meter, we learned that that water activity that bringing out from the cold environment refrigerator to the humid air was increasing our water activity by a dramatic amount. And so that really changed our process to fix that problem, because that was a problem. We'd go from probably 0.5 range to 0.7 range.

Zachary Cartwright [00:08:03]:

And then once you've dialed in your water activity, you're able to set a spec, make sure microorganisms aren't growing what is generally the shelf life for your products.

Rob Rebich [00:08:13]:

So right now we have a folded aluminum, which we can't since technically you can't really get the water vapor transmission rate. Exactly. We don't specify it, but we do say we've tested them here and they're easily good to like six months if stored in a cooler place. But the work you guys have done for us says that if we get our kind of a pretty decent packaging, nothing too super, has a decent water vapor transmission rate, we're looking at about a year.

Zachary Cartwright [00:08:43]:

Yeah, and we see that a lot, especially if you have water activity in a moisture switch and isotherm. You can predict shelf life as it relates to water activity, especially for a product like yours where we're trying to keep maybe a certain texture or definitely make sure that we're staying below a microbial limit so we can determine what that water vapor transmission rate should be. And then you can take that to your packaging provider and get a good recommendation. I did notice on your website it talks a little bit about how your company empowers small local farms and ranches. And I was hoping you could talk a little bit about that and how you are accomplishing that goal.

Rob Rebich [00:09:21]:

Yeah, so for us that's a big portion of our company is really sourcing our ingredients local and propping up these local farmers and ranches. That's important to us because in our lives we've seen the food system pretty much migrate to anything but local and we think it's very important to bring that back. And that really is related to the quality of our food. We lived in a processed food junk world, industrial sludge is what I call it. And I think that's a product of losing so much connection with our local food systems and there's a lot to be learned and gained as a human digging into your local food systems. And so that was an absolute requirement for us is that we will go to regenerative ranches, not feed lot, not the modern way cows are raised, but kind of the old school way. And we'd source all of our nuts and berries, our tallow, our butter, our honey from American farmers and ranches. And with that being said, preferably local, Colorado based.

Rob Rebich [00:10:20]:

So all of our beef comes from Colorado.

Zachary Cartwright [00:10:23]:

And where in Colorado are you located?

Rob Rebich [00:10:26]:

We're in the Front Range. So our company's in specifically Longmont, Colorado.

Zachary Cartwright [00:10:32]:

And is that primarily where you're selling your products now within Colorado or are you shipping elsewhere?

Rob Rebich [00:10:39]:

We're selling nearly all of our stuff online. We're shipping out to all the 50 states right now, but our number one state happens to be Colorado, so Colorado is the number one. And we get, I don't know, a handful of local pickup orders, but even most of the Colorado orders were shipping kind of like around the state. And so we do offer local pickup, though.

Zachary Cartwright [00:11:00]:

And you mentioned, know, just how a healthy diet includes animal products and you're pushing for that. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about how much protein is in these bars, what makes them healthier. So that if a consumer goes into a gas station and they pick it up and look at the nutritional facts, what are they going to see?

Rob Rebich [00:11:20]:

Well, I have a label for a cranberry pecan right here. So this one has 275 calories, 23 grams of fat, 9 grams of protein, and 8 grams of carbs. So what you'll notice immediately is that the fat protein, carb pie chart ratio is kind of unlike anything else. It's very high in fat and it's very low in carb. And a lot of people are kind of shifting to this, I guess notion that a low carb diet, more animal based is kind of the way to go. And we wanted to cater to that. And that's kind of the way we live too. And it goes against essentially everything the modern health system and nutritionists tell you.

Rob Rebich [00:12:06]:

But when the results speak for themselves and we've seen and had testimonials of so many people fixing so many aspects of their health and weight management and just, you name it, not necessarily from our product, I'm just saying in the animal based way of eating itself. And like I said, that really woke me up in a sense, to animal products. I had always had them, but I was very high carb eater myself. And I have since then, in the last couple of years, really reduced them by eating alpha bars and getting a lot of local food. And it just is great for my body. My body really responds well to it.

Zachary Cartwright [00:12:48]:

And then who is your target audience then? So it sounds like obviously people who are looking for something healthy maybe changing their diets, but is it backpackers or is it weightlifters? Who else have you seen starting to buy these bars?

Rob Rebich [00:13:04]:

Yes, our target audience is essentially people mine and your age who are kind of into eating. They're into energy drinks or energy bars and they kind of exhausted the market and they want something that fits their clean diet that is kind of on the go. Because the problem with this carnivore or animal based way of eating is you can't always just bust out a steak and cook it somewhere or a lot of it's perishable and you can't really get long shelf life type of items with this diet. And so we wanted to cater to the people who wanted to bring that type of eating with them to work at lunch and on the trail. And we've seen quite a bit of firefighters ordered them. Actually some local based firefighters here in Colorado, they love them.

Zachary Cartwright [00:13:57]:

And what is next for you? So you have a few products, a few flavors. You're based in Colorado. What does the next year, maybe five years look like for you? What are you hoping to accomplish?

Rob Rebich [00:14:09]:

So in terms of our company, our operations in the next year, really we want to get into full fledged, like a packaging system, a machine, and get some big kid packaging instead of doing it all by hand. And that will really change it. We would like to come up with one to two new flavors of our bars per year. And we have some ideas for those. And we would also like to get into some other products like forming our bars into tiny little compressed balls and making little trail mixes out of them. We looked into getting into some bone broths, but we're not sure about that. But I think pretty much just the bars and possibly trail mix and coming out an array of flavors.

Zachary Cartwright [00:14:51]:

And that was actually my next question. If you look at your website, it says meat based products. And right now you're obviously focusing on the bars. But I was curious what else you'll be working on. I think the trail mix will be really interesting and water activity will definitely be your friend there to make sure you're not having moisture migration and texture loss, those types of things. So I'm really excited to see what other products you work on. How are you going to decide on future flavors? What will that process look like?

Rob Rebich [00:15:19]:

Well, in the past it was just my wife and I who was the co founder. It's my wife and I who formed the business. And we would just kind of make the bars. And it's funny because in the first many sets of bars we made, we're like, they're gross. And then we finally nailed it with the mixture of the butter and honey. And so it's pretty much us flavor testing. But since then we've launched a bar called we call it the Zealot Bar because we had a lot of really zealoted carnivores come to us and they're like, I'm not going to eat your bar because it has honey. We're like, wow, we didn't realize 6 grams of carbs is a big deal to you.

Rob Rebich [00:15:54]:

And it is to a lot of people. It's a big deal and they don't want any. And so we were joking around with them and we called the bar the Zealot Bar. And everyone loved that name. And so we stuck with it. We shipped out some of those bars and we got some positive feedback and some negative feedback because it's just a little more hardcore without the honey. And so that's why we're going to freeze dry bone broth and we're going to infuse the bar with freeze dried bone broth. And I think it's going to be a home run.

Rob Rebich [00:16:20]:

It's going to be delicious. But I think we'll send them out to our top customers and have them trial them and see what they say.

Zachary Cartwright [00:16:27]:

Well, I'd love to try it out if I can get on that short list. This may be a good time to mention it, but something else I've been focusing on this year, and our team has focused on is sensory analysis and doing sensory panels, whether it's consumer testing or with a trained panel. So something like that may be really helpful to your team in the future.

Rob Rebich [00:16:49]:

Right. I remember having conversations about that, and I meant to circle back around to it. Yeah, that might be in the future, for sure.

Zachary Cartwright [00:16:56]:

One other question I like to ask people on the show is, are you hiring? Are you looking to expand your team? And if so, what positions would be available?

Rob Rebich [00:17:05]:

Yeah, so right now, I guess I didn't mention we were renting a kitchen.

Zachary Cartwright [00:17:12]:

Sorry.

Rob Rebich [00:17:12]:

We moved into a new kitchen. We upgraded it to a much nicer kitchen, and we look at it as a stepping stone still. So we say in about three to five years, we want to kind of break free of this small just my wife and I kitchen, because we're not hiring, it's just us. And step into a bigger kitchen where we can actually hire some help and kind of get to the 1000 bar a day range where we want to be. So I'd say we're hoping in probably three years we might be at the point where we're looking for someone, some help.

Zachary Cartwright [00:17:45]:

Well, I would love to check in around that time and maybe do another episode and see what new products or how you've grown since then. If anybody listening right now and they want to try your product, what's the best way for them to get a hold of it?

Rob Rebich [00:18:00]:

So eatalpa.com. E-A-T-A-U-P-A. Right on my hat here. That's the best way to get our product. If you live here in the Front Range, choose local pickup and come by and see our stuff, and we'll give you a little tour of our facility. Yeah, our website is the best way.

Zachary Cartwright [00:18:19]:

All right, perfect. And we'll make sure to list that in this description so people can find it easily. Well, this was kind of short and sweet, but I really appreciate you coming on the show, Rob. Again, I've seen lots of different bars, lots of different ingredients and things, but this one really stands out. I think it has a lot of potential to take off, because you're right, people are looking for something that's different, that's healthier, higher in protein, more filling, doesn't have all those additives and things. So I'm excited to see where this ends up, and I hope you come back at some point and give us an update.

Rob Rebich [00:18:52]:

For sure. Thank you very much.

Zachary Cartwright [00:18:54]:

I'm Zachary Cartwright. This is water in food. Find this podcast on Apple, itunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.