2555: Real Food Protein with James Oliver

LifeBlood: We talked about healthy, real food protein, the dangers of processed foods and sugar, why so many companies choose unnatural over natural, the necessity of constant innovation, and how to start giving your body what it needs to be strong and healthy, with James Oliver, Founder of Atlas Bars. Listen to learn how courage and humility apply directly to entrepreneurial success! You can learn more about James at AtlasBars.com, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn. George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of The Meaningful Few here: https://amzn.to/4qA26X9 Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: https://www.mymeaningfulfew.com/ Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here:​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcastYou can learn more about us at LifeBlood. Live, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook or you’d like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood. Live. Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee.https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifebloodCopyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  James Oliver is the founder of Atlas Bars. It is, they are what protein bars were meant to be. Protein, real food, little sugar, and they are very delicious. I can tell that with extreme confidence because James sent me some of his delicious bars. Welcome to the show, James.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me, George. Pleasure to be here.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, excited to have you on. Tell us a little bit about your personal life, more about your work, and why you do what you do.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Sure. So, from the Boston area, grew up in New England, went to school in New England, and I actually started Atlas right out of school, so I've never had a quote-unquote "real job." The reason I started the company was because I figured that, yeah, it's a risky thing to do, starting something, but the best time to take a risk is when you have little to lose, and at 22, you don't have a lot to lose. So I figured, if there's ever a time to do this, the time's now, even though I have no experience and I don't know anything about anything, I think that I'll probably learn more applying myself to this in the next couple of years than I will doing something else. So, that's why I initially started a company.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  And when I was thinking about what to start a company around, I think, like most people, you think about what you know, your domain of competence, and for me, that was nutrition. I had... Taught myself a lot about nutrition. I was just very interested in it from a young age. I um, I, one of my earliest memories was when I was like a young kid, like four or five years old. And one of my parents said to me that eating carrots improves your eyesight. And I remember that stuck with me and I was like, oh, that's interesting. So if I have a bunch of carrots, like I'll be able to see better. And I just, that, that idea was just so cool to me that, that you can improve parts of your body and how your body and mind function by the choices that you make of what you put into it.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Like the, the equivalent that I, I thought of was like, if you had a car and just by choosing, making certain choices, you could upgrade the engine of that car. Not by like buying anything, but just by how you, you choose to uh, use that car. And I was like, that's really cool. And I, that, that, that really stuck with me. And so I got into nutrition, health, fitness. Um, I just thought it was, there, there's so few things that you can control in this world and in life. And I, I thought it was very empowering that you can control, like, you know what? I can't control all the craziness in the world, but I can uh, choose what I put in my body.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  I can choose what I do with my body and I can uh, make the most of this. You only get one body, so you may as well take care of it. So I, I, I was very taken with all of that um, as a kid and thought about through high school. And then in college, I got more into uh, more into like long distance endurance stuff. Like I did a couple of ultra marathons before, actually, I didn't even know that they're called that. I just did long distance stuff and uh, a few years later, I was like, oh, I guess technically, I guess those were ultra marathons. Um, but because of that, you then have to dive more. A lot of that, like the challenge of that is, one of the big challenges that people underestimate is nutrition is a big component. Like you have to train your stomach. You really need to have that dialed in if you're gonna push your body like that. So I, I learned a lot more about it then, just taught myself a bunch.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  And by the time I was ready to finish with school, I um, knew a good amount about the space. And um, I also felt that in this specific instance, in the, in the bar space, despite how many. Uh, how many brands there were, I thought that there was room for a product that I myself really couldn't find. And because I couldn't find it, I knew there was a gap, which was something that was made with real ingredients, high protein, low sugar. It was just the things that I wanted for myself. And I was like, I wish somebody made this and it probably would have, probably would have made my life easier if it just existed. So I didn't have to make it myself. But initially, I just, I was like, I think that there's, uh, I, I really didn't think about it. I was like, starting a company. I was just like, I want this for myself. I'm

• 4:44Speaker 02

  just trying to solve a problem and I'll see if others, uh, if it resonates with others too. So that's how I initially launched a business and what I decided to launch it around.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Well, I think that that it's like, that makes perfect sense. And I love stories like yours where you are working to kind of solve your own problem and you're actually, actually able to do it. Why is it in when you went down the path of wanting to just use whole ingredients, low sugar, real food? Like, that just sounds so obvious to me, but why isn't it? Why, why, why did nobody else do it?

• 5:22Speaker 02

  It's a great question. And I think that there are a number of reasons why. And I think they're the same reasons that our food system today is dominated by processed foods that are full of sugar. Uh, one, sugar is very cheap. Sugar is very cheap and it tastes good. And when most companies are, their equation is effectively, how do we maximize profit margins and how do we maximize consumption? Well, it helps if you have an ingredient that's very cheap and also can be very addictive. Um, it kind of solves two birds, uh, or kills two birds with one stone. So, um, company, large companies have a huge incentive to, to use sugar because, um, it, it really is, I mean, there's a reason that Coca-Cola, uh, basically prints money and they just sell a sugar wine because it's very addictive

• 6:05Speaker 02

  and it's very cheap. Um, so there's that economic incentive part of it. And then there's also the functional side of it, which is that it's more challenging to create a shelf stable product. I think people underestimate how complex because you interact with it every day. You're like, oh, how difficult could it be to make a cookie? It's a very complex biochemical system where you have all these different interactions happening. You can't see them because they're microscopic, but you have all these different interactions happening. And it's much easier if you can use a lot of the chemical and artificial stabilizers that companies have innovated to solve this. Like if you can

• 6:44Speaker 02

  use industrial oils that are much more stable, but they're also not the best for consumption. Or if you can use different flavors that, again, they're not natural derivatives, but they create a very nice, stable flavor. So I think to answer your question, there's both economic and formulaic reasons that people don't, that people don't use, or larger companies don't use like real ingredients, because it's both more expensive and it's harder to do.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Well, those are compelling reasons, right?

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  And you'd tell me if I'm off base here, but I didn't necessarily understand. So I'm forty seven years old. I was a division one athlete. I stay very active now. What I put into my body is extremely important to me that I do good things. But that has not always been the case. I don't know that I was aware of looking for added sugars and all of these seed oils or all, just all the crap that you don't put into your bars. Do you feel like people are more like me where they're sort of waking up to, what am I putting into my body?

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I definitely think so. And I, well, I don't think so. I know so, because if you look at the largest CPG companies right now, if you look at their financial performance, it's, it's not good. And it's not good because Americans kind of en masse are rejecting a lot of the shelf-stable products that they've had over the past couple of decades. So I think, I think we've effectively been running an experiment over the last fifty years on the American

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Population really on the Western world, which is like what happens if you give an entire population, like multiple generations of people, all of this food that's very heavily processed and is not really food that you would ever encounter in the natural world. And now we're seeing the results of that, which is that nine out of 10 people have some kind of metabolic disorder. We have record levels of obesity. We have record levels of diabetes and all these metrics are going in the wrong direction because the food system as it currently stands is perpetuating them. So I think that people are waking up because it's very clear that, yeah, in the short

• 9:05Speaker 02

  term, you can get away with having cereal and having fast food and all of this. And you're not really going to see too much of a difference in your, your day to day life. But if you do that five, 10, 20 years.

• 9:20Speaker 03

  GLP-1s are changing weight loss.

• 9:22Speaker 04

  My sister had amazing.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  The ideal treatment is.

• 9:24Speaker 05

  Seems like everyone's a GLP-1 expert these days, but when it comes to your health, it pays to listen to someone who actually is like orderlymeds.com with 50% off your first two orders and personalized support along the way. We're making it easier to get started. Visit orderlymeds.com. Bringing orders to the chaos of GLP-1s. Individual results may vary. Eligibility and prescription required. Not medical advice. Visit orderlymeds.com for details. Compound and medications are not FDA approved.

• 9:50Speaker 06

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star trust pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  That's going to put you on a different trajectory and that trajectory is not a good trajectory. And I think people now, we've, we've done this long enough that it's clear that there's a causal effect between consuming all this food and what it does to your long term health. And so I think because of that, you do have people rejecting what traditionally has, or traditionally over the last couple of decades, has been kind of the mainstays in, in American diets.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  You just kind of started talking about inputs and the things you put in. Eating carrots, you're going to see better. You know, you do good things to your car, it'll perform better. Well, for 50 years, the experiment that's been run, the results are obviously freaking terrible. And so hopefully we are, hopefully it's not too late. So you can go get a protein bar at whatever. There's all these, there's a thousand of them and they're all have these crazy labels and there's colors on them. And many of them literally taste like candy bars. So when you are competing for that, or you are trying to put together your formula that will be shelf stable, that will be good enough, but not tasting like a Snickers. How do you sort of square that circle?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  How did you, how did you settle on your formula, for lack of a better term?

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Many, many iterations. Yeah, we, we still iterate. We still make modifications here and there. I, I don't think that, the way that I view a product is that it's, it's not just a static thing. It's continuously evolving like us, like people, like we're continuously evolving. Like an example would be like if, if Apple had come out with the iPhone in 2007 and it was just like, all right, we're done. No need for any changes. Obviously they didn't do that. They're on, yeah, they're on iPhone like 15 now, because there's always things that you can improve, always ways that you can make the product better. But I think it's, it's a great question and I think that's the challenge in terms of,

• 12:12Speaker 02

  you, you are fighting biology at some level because human biology wants sweet, it wants fat, it wants salt. And if you are trying to create something like we're trying to create, you are fighting against all of these brands that are using these ingredients that leverage those, those really like, like primitive levers in your brain, that your brain, your brain just wants sugar. It wants fat, it wants salt because those things are so scarce for the majority of human existence that it's, it's still, our biology basically hasn't caught up to the fact that this thing that Like ninety nine point nine percent of human existence was very scarce like you wouldn't just

• 12:56Speaker 02

  you wouldn't have access to abundant sugar or abundant salts or fat is now something that we do have in abundance. So I think that's that's really the challenge for a lot of a lot of brands like us is how do you make something that doesn't compromise on those things? And can still deliver the kind of sensory experience that people are looking for, but that does it with better ingredients. Unfortunately, ingredient technology has come a long way in terms of the levers that we have available, like there's an ingredient that now exists that didn't really exist. Even five, 10 years ago, Alulose is what it's called. It's basically

• 13:37Speaker 02

  it's it technically is a sugar, but it has ten percent of the calories of sugar and seventy percent of the sweetness and no metabolic impact. So the reason that's important is because that unlocks a lot of possibilities in terms of what you're able to formulate because you now have this ingredient that you can basically use as a replacement for sucrose. But it doesn't have really any of the negative downsides. And so I think it's easier now more than ever to create products that are aligned with people's health and biology, but that also deliver the sensory experience that people expect and want.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fascinating, right? Every ounce of my DNA wants wants that sweetness. We want the saltiness. We want to be consuming. And then we want to be looking at it be like, oh, look, I'm doing something good for my body. This tastes really good also. What a what a wonderful benefit. But we're getting hijacked to a degree. But it sounds like you've, well, it doesn't sound like I've eaten your bars and they are awesome. And they are delivering exactly what it is that I'm looking for. So what has been your, like, you need to get them in people's hands, right? So how how how is your distribution strategy changed or evolved? What is it doing right now?

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, we actually, right now, we sell a majority of our product online. The reason that I like online first for a couple of reasons. One, you have more real estate to communicate to the consumer. The things that we're talking about right now, it's very hard if you think about like a traditional grocery store and how large the labels are, you have like this much space, like a cigarette box of space to communicate why your product is different, whereas if you think about what you can do online, you can use videos, you can use images, you can use graphics, you can use so many different mediums for communicating to people so that they're like, oh, I get it, like, this makes sense to me.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  This is, as you said, this is kind of obvious why somebody would want that. So I like it for that reason. And then I also like it because just from a pure economic perspective, the food industry is very, it's, there's a lot of people involved. So there's distributors, there's brokers, there's retailers. And that can contrast that with like direct to consumer, where you don't have those other individuals involved. And all those, all those groups, they serve a purpose and they're necessary, but it just means that there are more people in the kind of chain from the company to the consumer that need to take a cut in order to have a sustainable business.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  And when you can go directly to consumers, you don't need to basically give out like three different cuts to different companies. So it makes it easier for emerging brands from that perspective, too, just from a pure financial perspective, to scale.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  And how do you think about, how did you settle on your pricing? Are you the cheapest, are you the most expensive, somewhere in the middle?

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Uh, somewhere, I would say we're somewhere in the middle. Uh, I think that we would probably be just like Starbucks is not the cheapest, but it's also not the most, it's not like as expensive as some like boutique coffee shop, but it's also not like, uh, as cheap as like a Dunkin'. Um, it's like, if, if you think about where pricing would be on like a bell curve, it's probably like, if bell curve is like, or the, the average is like 50%, it's probably like 60 or 70%. I think that's roughly where, where we would fall, uh, to. So the, the average price that somebody pays for an Atlas bar is $2.50, um, which is, it's not the cheap, I'd say like middle of the pack is probably like $2 or so, and like the high end is like $3 to $4.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  So we're a little bit above, um, the average, but in terms of, in terms of how to establish pricing, if I was, uh, I guess, giving guidance to somebody, a lot of it is determined by just what your consumer is willing to pay, like how much is, you can, sure, you can look at the competitive field and say, okay, their price here, their price here. But at the end of the day, it really, uh, comes down to how much value are you giving to somebody and how much are they willing to pay for that value? And there's also trade-offs because if you increase price, it's in all likelihood, your volume is going to decrease. So it depends on your goals too. So if you're just looking to like maximize the number of units you, you want to sell, then sure, you can, you can cut price

• 18:08Speaker 02

  and you're probably going to do that. But if you're looking to maximize profit, then you can increase price a lot and you're probably going to sell fewer units, but you're going to make more per unit. So it also depends on what your, your goals are and what you're looking to do at the business.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I appreciate that. So looking back on your entrepreneurial journey with Atlas Bars, what was, uh, maybe some of the biggest highlights, lowlights, biggest surprises, shocking things?

• 18:36Speaker 03

  GLP-1s are changing weight loss.

• 18:38Speaker 04

  My sister had amazing.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  The ideal treatment is.

• 18:40Speaker 05

  Seems like everyone's a GLP-1 expert these days. But when it comes to your health, it pays to listen to someone who actually is. Orderly Meds makes it easy to get started with personalized support along the way. And with your first month's order, we're giving you the second month free. Visit orderlymeds.com. Bringing orders to the chaos of GLP-1s. Individual results may vary. Eligibility and prescription required. Not medical advice. Visit orderlymeds.com for details. Compound and medications are not FDA approved.

• 19:06Speaker 06

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  There's honestly so many. I'm sure. There's so many.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  I mean, I think one of the, one of the most important things is just being a sponge and just trying to learn is being cognitively flexible. And it's, it's really hard to do because you have to have some opinions and some framework for building and navigating, making decisions. But at the same time, you also have to be open-minded and be willing to change those frameworks and adapt them based on new information, which is a hard thing to do. It's hard to have both like confident opinions about like, okay, this is what we're doing. But then in light of new information, be like, uh, just kidding. This makes more sense to do now, so let's, let's move in this direction. Like I actually, I had to do that recently because I was planning on

• 20:27Speaker 02

  moving in a certain direction with how we're positioning the product. And then new information came to light and I, I kind of discarded what I was gonna do. And I was like, all right, that, I think that like makes sense at some point, but not right now, so let's go in, in this direction. So I think that's, that's a really important skill to have is being a sponge, being able to absorb information quickly, especially in this day and age when things change faster than ever. There's more tools that come out, the landscape shifts, um, like as we. Are speaking, there are like entire industries that are being disrupted by the advent of AI. So, um, industries and, um, the world moves at a velocity now that it's never moved at before.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  So I think that's just such a, such a key, key skill is just to be able to process information and act on it and think clearly, thinking clearly, it's easier said than done, but, um, yeah, it's just such an important thing.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Well, certainly, and this is your baby, you know, this is something that you made and you created. So it's, uh, it's makes perfect sense that you would be excited about your ideas, but it obviously wonderful that you're, have the courage and the humility to say, oh, you know what, I maybe was wrong about that or slightly wrong about that. I need to be able to pivot, so.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that, um, I, I think that one of the mistakes that I've made is that, uh, being, and I think I've seen this with, with others, if you wrap your identity up too much in what you're making, it can really constrain you because then even if you know the right thing to do is, is pivot or adapt whatever you're selling or change direction, because your identity is now conflated with what you're doing, it makes it really hard to do that because in order to basically kind of kill what you're doing, you also have to like kill a part of yourself. So it not to go down a spiritual route, but I think that that idea of detachment, um, that's like a common Buddhist idea,

• 22:25Speaker 02

  but I think it's really helpful in entrepreneurship too, because you don't ever get attached to what you're doing. And if things change and if you say, actually, um, this is a direction that is, um, experiencing, oh, like this wasn't what I started, but this is a direction that's experiencing a lot more traction than this other direction. So let's go in this direction. Um, it gives you the ability to do that without really having any, um, I don't know, any of the like shame or whatever negative feelings that somebody might experience from, um, getting down on themselves that their initial idea didn't work out.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Love it. Well, James, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for creating Atlas Bars. Again, they are delicious. Where can people learn more? How can they engage? Where can they get a box of Atlas Bars?

• 23:12Speaker 02

  If you just search Atlas, Atlas Bars on anywhere, you'll, you'll find them. People, a lot of people get them through Amazon, through our website. And yeah, I really appreciate the time. Thank you for letting me come on and share a little bit about my story. And yeah, it was a great conversation.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's always fun hearing from entrepreneurs. So, thank you. If you enjoyed as much as I did, show James your appreciation. Share today's show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas for the people who are health conscious in your life, or who want to become more health conscious. Pick up a box of Atlas Bars. You can find them by using your favorite search engine, or going to Amazon, or however you like to do that, and check it out. Thanks again, James.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Thank you. Appreciate it, George. Until next time, remember, do your part by doing your best.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  GLP-1s are changing weight loss. My sister had amazing. The ideal treatment is.

• 24:09Speaker 05

  Seems like everyone's a GLP-1 expert these days. But when it comes to your health, it pays to listen to someone who actually is. Like OrderlyMeds.com. With 50% off your first two orders and personalized support along the way, we're making it easier to get started. Visit OrderlyMeds.com. Bringing orders to the chaos of GLP-1s. Individual results may vary. Eligibility and prescription required. Not medical advice. Visit OrderlyMeds.com for details. Compound and medications are not FDA approved. Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals. No kidding. Learn more at GetHumana.com. See

• 24:51Speaker 05

  any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.