From Backyard Protein Bars to Erewhon: Jennifer Newman on Building JustNosh to Last
Much like many of the founders, entrepreneurs, and public figures I’ve interviewed in the past, I met Jennifer serendipitously at an event and immediately knew she would have something insightful and valuable to share about her entrepreneurial journey.
Jennifer is the founder of JustNosh, a high-quality protein bar thoughtfully created to support gut health. Her story isn’t one of overnight success. Rather, it’s about making conscious choices to grow her business in a way that is sustainable and uncompromising to her values, which I think is often underrated.
I was delighted to have some one-on-one time with Jennifer to hear the full story of how she started JustNosh, as well as the advice she has for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Q:
What has the journey of starting your own company been like for you, and when was the moment that it began to feel real?
A:
There are a million mountains to climb during this journey, and getting products out into the world is obviously one of them. But there were a couple of moments that stood out for me.
To give you some background, this was in 2019, before the company began. At the time, I was trying to address some gut issues, and it was proposed that I go on an elimination diet, which is a common way to identify triggers through a reintroduction process.
I've been a lover of protein bars all my life. They're my snack of choice. This was before I knew much about ingredient quality or the concept that what you eat and put into your body matters. Suddenly, I was faced with the challenge of no longer being able to consume most of the things I loved. All of my protein bars were on the no-no list.
So I set out to figure out how I could still enjoy my daily protein bar without consuming the ones I had been eating. I managed to mash together some simple ingredients that resembled a protein bar, by no means close to what the bars are today, but with the same spirit in mind: high-quality, simple and recognizable ingredients.
This was in 2019 and 2020, when I was beginning to develop the process. I thought to myself, there have to be other people going through the same struggle as me—having dietary restrictions or really wanting to dissect what it is they're eating, in a market with so many options but very few that actually pass their personal quality standards.
That was the prompt that got me interested in solving this problem.
Serendipitously, my business partner and I, who are both health freaks, worked in corporate at the same company. When that company was sold, we got together and said, "We're both passionate about health and wellness, let's really take a stab at this."
What started as a backyard mishmash turned into figuring out how to bring the product to market. That process itself took several years. After spending much of 2020 experimenting with recipes and navigating the ins and outs of launching a cottage food business, I officially started selling bars out of my apartment. In the second half of 2021, I moved production into a commercial kitchen, where everything was still being made by hand. Then, throughout 2022, we worked with a food scientist to refine the product and prepare it for large-scale manufacturing. By the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023, we were finally launching a professionally manufactured product and building something that felt real.
To get back to your question, the first moment it felt real was after about 26 iterations with our food scientist, while accommodating all of my requirements: high protein, 10 grams of collagen, gluten-free, dairy-free, FODMAP friendly, no added natural flavors, and everything else that has now become part of our product pillars. Being able to make the formula work and produce it at scale, from where it originated to something that could be consumed anywhere, anytime, was the first major milestone.
The second moment was getting placement in Erewhon. As an upscale and well-known Southern California health food chain that shares many of our values, it felt like validation that we had found product-market fit as a brand.
Q:
What has surprised you most about yourself through the process of building this company?
A:
I can't take credit for this concept—it's from Sari Azout, founder of Sublime. She emphasizes the idea of prioritizing the "Exist Strategy" instead of the "Exit Strategy." The second I heard that, it really struck a nerve.
I am someone who is incredibly determined. I prefer results that would have happened yesterday, and very much have a "let's go" personality. I'm analytical, but also very results-driven.
What I've had to learn is what allows for longevity in this process. I want to be doing this for a long time, and honestly, I wouldn't want to be doing anything else in the world, which I feel lucky to even be able to say.
With that in mind, the way to win at this is to last. How do you stay in the game when you're not raising millions of dollars? How do you maintain your values when it's easy to become focused on distribution and how many stores you're in?
I've had to embrace patience. Embrace the idea of going slow to go fast.
That's been a real change, or maybe a maturing process, for me. I've had to get real about how long things take while learning to appreciate that reality. We've gone through three packaging iterations, and that's the result of existing, learning, and understanding how to improve from where we were before.
That said, growth is still very important to me. But finding that sweet spot, where we're moving forward, building momentum, and making progress, even if it's slower than others, has become really important for me psychologically.
Q:
What is a part of your company mission that you hope never gets lost as the company continues to grow?
A:
Our tagline is: Protein bars for ingredient-obsessed people.
As companies scale, there are always going to be trade-offs. It's very easy to trade quality for profit or quality for scale. And I don't blame brands for doing it because the cost of quality continues to rise.
Brands usually have to put up significant capital upfront to produce larger quantities, and for emerging brands, it's very difficult to survive without making compromises along the way.
Personally, I hope we never have to make that trade-off when it comes to ingredient quality. That's something I'm pretty set on.
Q:
If you could sit down with the version of yourself from the very beginning of JustNosh, what would you tell her to worry less about?
A:
Gosh, so many things.
I feel like my mother has been telling me this since I was a kid: "Don't sweat the small stuff." And that still holds true.
At the same time, I think you can only develop a gauge for what the small stuff is after you've been through it. In retrospect, I can say that certain things weren't worth worrying about, but at the time, they were the biggest challenges sitting right in front of me.
So it's something I acknowledge, but it's really more of a practice for me now. If I'm faced with a challenge and find myself worrying or stressing over it, I try to maintain some perspective and remember how far we've come and how many challenges we've already worked through.
I also try to remind myself that I'm not special in this game. Many of the challenges I'm facing are shared by countless other food companies and businesses. I find that depersonalizing the situation and detaching some of the emotional weight can be helpful.
So I would probably tell myself to ride the wave, embrace the process, and know that sometimes things take twice as long as expected, and that's okay.
“If you were to ask me what to swap out first, I would say laundry detergent, because it’s on everything. We are sleeping in sheets, wearing clothes, drying ourselves off with towels that have all been washed by our laundry detergent. Just how heavy fragrances cling onto fabric they cling onto our skin and get into our system.”
Q:
What advice would you give someone considering entrepreneurship for the first time?
A:
I want to be transparent about my path because I’m not someone who would ever just wake up one day and decide not to have a consistent paycheck, so I’m happy to explain how that worked from my end.
Going back to the beginning and how this all originated for me, what I would advise and encourage people to do is remain curious and listen to those curiosities. I think it’s also in the zeitgeist now that everyone wants to be an entrepreneur or a business owner, and I would say to anyone that if you’re considering that, you should really be obsessed with the thing you’re wanting to pursue, rather than just filling white space or becoming an entrepreneur for the sake of it.
Given how many challenges there are, you really have to love the crap out of what you’re doing and really be able to anchor to your “why.” I would also say that there doesn't need to be this pressure to figure out what your calling is. For me, I just loved protein bars, and I came to an inflection point in my life where I needed to pay attention to what was going on in my body. It was selfishly figuring out how to solve my own problem at first, which I think is how many companies originate.
I think that’s a great place to start because if you can prove that solving your own problem can be shared with others, then you have reason to exist, in theory. And from there, just take it one step at a time. I was very much working my finance job from home when all of this was just stewing. I did all of these things in my backyard while I still had my job. So it was convenient, there was no real pressure, and I was just pursuing my curiosity.
I am fortunate to have founded JustNosh and serve as a co-owner of JAG Provisions Inc. Through the complementary strengths that each of us brings to the business, we have been able to grow JAG Provisions, with JustNosh as one of the brands in its portfolio, without requiring outside funding up to this point. That has afforded us the opportunity to take a disciplined, methodical approach to growth and focus on building a sustainable business for the long term.
So I would say to anyone to only take that kind of leap if you feel comfortable. You have to be able to pay your bills and live your life outside of your work. So be methodical about your own personal situation.
Q:
For someone discovering JustNosh for the first time, where can they find your products today, and what's next for the brand?
A:
The easiest place, regardless of where you are in the country, is our Amazon store. That's usually my first answer.
You can also order directly from our newly revamped website at EatJustNosh.com.
We're currently in 10 international airports, including SFO, Newark, and JFK, with placement in a number of airport retail stores. We're also available at Erewhon locations throughout the Greater Los Angeles area.
Overall, we're in close to 200 retail locations. There's a store locator on our website that can help you find a location near you. For now, our retail footprint is more regional, primarily Southern California and New York. Hopefully, if you ask me again in a year, we'll be in many more stores and airports.
One of the things we're currently working on is a new Almond Butter & Berries snack-size bar. I think our next big leap is successfully integrating the snack size option, and hopefully this new flavor into the market.
My goal is really to meet customers where this product is needed. That's one reason airports have been such a great fit for us. People are looking for something that travels well and digests well.
Going forward, we're looking for more opportunities like that, whether it's offices, hotels, or other environments where a high-quality snack-size bar fills a real need. That's our long-term vision. In the meantime, we're also working with affiliate partners to help introduce our products through channels that are available to us.
Jennifer Newman is the founder of JustNosh, a collagen protein bar company created to fill a gap she experienced firsthand as a health-conscious consumer. Passionate about nutrition, fitness, and ingredient transparency, Jennifer founded JustNosh after struggling to find protein bars that aligned with her standards for ingredient quality and dietary needs, realizing others shared the same frustration.
Driven by the belief that consumers deserve better choices, Jennifer built JustNosh around a simple philosophy: fewer ingredients, higher standards, and no unnecessary compromises. What began as a personal solution has grown into a nationally distributed brand offering protein bars made with grass-fed collagen and simple, recognizable ingredients. JustNosh bars are gluten-free, dairy-free, and FODMAP-friendly, serving consumers who value both function and ingredient quality.
Through her work, Jennifer hopes to help people make informed decisions about the foods they eat and show that convenience and quality don't have to be mutually exclusive.
To stay up to date with the latest from JustNosh, follow the brand on Instagram. JustNosh products are available on Amazon and directly through their website.
To connect with Jennifer, you can find her on LinkedIn, Instagram, or reach out via email.
