Meating the need
Mr. Rooney created his company, Tucson, Arizona-based DNX Foods, and his products, DNX meat bars, to meet the needs of meat eaters. Or more specifically, those on meat-centric diets that are looking for healthful ways to get more meat protein in their snacks.
“Our goal was to develop a meat bar that delivered protein as nature intended it,” Mr. Rooney said. “We saw that there were good tasting snack bars on the market that weren’t good for you and good-for-you bars that didn’t taste good. We wanted to give our customers both.”
DNX meat bars contain grass-fed bison or beef and organic vegetables in flavor combinations that aren’t typical for snack bars – Jamaican-style, Mexican-style, sweet potato pecan, dark cacao cherry coconut and fennel sweet potato. DNX will soon be adding chicken and pork varieties to its line of meat bars.
Aside from the flavors, the difference in DNX bars versus other meat-centric snacks like beef jerky is that those types of meat snacks only contain protein – DNX bars deliver protein, carbohydrates and fat in almost equal amounts.
“Our bars have been designed to emulate a meal, so you get a bit of everything,” Mr. Rooney said. “DNX bars have 10 to 15 grams of protein, 10 grams of carbohydrates from complex carb sources like sweet potatoes and 8 to 11 grams of fat from sources like coconut oil.”
All of the protein in the bars comes from meat – not from powder protein sources like whey or pea protein.
“It’s important nutritionally to have meat in your diet,” Mr. Rooney said. “The protein in meat is more nutritionally dense than other sources of protein. There are certain things that our bodies need that can only come from animal protein.”
Despite being on the market for just one year, DNX bars have already gone through a small formulation change. In order to earn the Whole30 program stamp of approval the company had to pull honey from the formulation (honey is not on the Whole30 approved sweeteners list). Mr. Rooney subtracted the honey and added dates to the bars to provide sweetness and some binding qualities. After that change, the bars will be able to feature the “Whole30 Approved” logo, which will open up a new customer base.
“It means a lot when you have companies like DNX … going out of their way to change product ingredients specifically so they can service our [the Whole30] community,” said Melissa Hartwig, author and co-creator of the Whole30 program. “That says a lot about the power of the program and the certification and how responsive these companies are to want to open themselves up to a new market.”
The newly formulated DNX bars featuring the Whole30 Approved logo are hitting the market in January, just in time for New Year’s resolutions to kick in.
“I think their addition to the Whole30 Approved lineup will be one of most welcome announcements we’ve made all year,” Ms. Hartwig said. “My community is already going crazy for the idea to have another option for portable protein for their January Whole30.”
