Ungerleider and Knight tilt at the 'big guys' and savor crossover success for snack foods.Ungerleider and Knight tilt at the 'big guys' and savor crossover success for snack foods While America has crunched away on granola for years, all that healthful health·ful adj. 1. Conducive to good health; salutary. 2. Healthy. health  ful·ness n. mastication mastication /mas·ti·ca·tion/ (mas?ti-ka´shun) chewing; the biting and grinding of food. mastication (mas´tikā´sh has not been able to numb its sweet tooth. Now, those who formerly would not have cake are eating it too, with the introduction of Fi-Bar, a high-fiber, low-calorie all-natural snack food growing fast in popularity and sales. Launched in March, Fi-Bar is the first big crossover product for Natural Nectar, the 12-year-old Culver City-based natural foods company. Until Fi-Bar, Natural Nectar products were relegated to specialty sections as diet/gournet health foods. Now the product is competing successfully for shelf space and sales with the likes of Kellogg's, General Mills and Quaker Oats. Big area chains like Ralph's, Safeway and Stater stat·er 1 n. A resident of a particular state or type of state. Often used in combination: Lone Star staters; farm staters; the struggle between slave staters and free staters. Noun 1. Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) . jumped on the product, and the company expects to sell $10 million worth in the product's inaugural year. Already Fi-Bar represents half of Natural Nectar's total sales. "We're not big enough to go out and create demand for our products, so we decided to better serve the demand that was already out there," says Jeffrey Knight, the company's president. "The fastest growth area in nutrition is fiber, and the fastest growth area in snack foods is fruit-based products, so we combined the two and the prodct took off." Knight, a former marketing vice president for the Disney Channel, brought his expertise to Natural Nectar two years ago. Founder and natural food guru Andrew Ungerleider already had a prosperous business as a top producer and marketer of frozen novelties, confections and nutritional snacks, "but the company was already to move into the mainstream of the food industry," says Knight. "Natural Nectar was ready to take on 'the big guys.'" Fi-Bar has carried a lot of success for the rest of the company's operations on its coattails coat·tail n. 1. The loose back part of a coat that hangs below the waist. 2. coattails The skirts of a formal or dress coat. Idiom: on the coattails of 1. . Knight says the company has just completed a deal with ARA Ara or Arrah (both: ŭ`rə), city (1991 pop. 157,082), Bihar state, NE India, on the Son Canal. A major road and rail junction, it is the administrative center for a district that produces grain, sugarcane, and oilseed. , the Philadelphia-based food services food services Hospital services A 24/7 department in a hospital that provides for the nutritional needs of inpatients–eg, those needing special diets, preparing meals and transporting them to the floor and, through the cafeteria, the hospital staff and management giant, to develop its line of healthy snacks called Treat Yourself Right. He will not disclose how much the deal is worth, but says that 1988 revenues should rise to $20 million. "We make good products and we can deliver," says Knight. "Once again we took on the big guys and won." |
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