Open Fuel US: Launching a Nutrition Brand

Why I'm taking this risk and the positive impact we're going to bring

Call it coincidence, fate, synchronicity – I’ll never grow ungrateful of the interconnectedness and opportunities this life affords us.

This particular chance has manifested in the form of a high-carb electrolyte drink mix.

Despite the race not going to plan, I left Cape Town last fall with not only a wealth of learnings and experiences, but the seeds of a new passion-project. Following a course recon outing to Hout Bay a few days before UTCT, as we were waiting to cop a delicious loaf of sourdough, my partner spotted an intriguing box of sachets on the counter of South Yeaster bakery.

“Open Fuel”

Immediately, I was struck by the branding. It felt fresh, fun, loud, and serious. A welcome change from the minimalist, over-marketed, greyscale canvas so many running and cycling brands have leaned into during the “fueling revolution.” Once I was able to try a flask of the mix, I was more than sold. More importantly, my partner, who has a pickier palette and aversion to the artificially sweet lab-made flavor of the common mix/gel, also loved it.

Arriving back in the US, I went onto the Open Fuel site, disappointed to see that it was only available in South Africa.

Historically, I might have continued on fueling with whatever array of indistinguishable brands the Feed’s marketing machine was promoting that week. Instead, I did something new, I reached out to the contact email listed on the Open Fuel site to ask about future market expansion plans.

Now, I’m a co-owner of Open Fuel (1 of 2) and along with the founder, Andrew Bloom, have hustled to get US sales up and running. I will not downplay the luck involved here, but it’s also a testament to taking a risk when inspiration and a little bit of recklessness strikes.

my first attempt at one of those youtube thumbnails

What Makes Open Fuel Different?

A question I’m fielding a lot these days. My answer is centered around three guiding principles – fun, simplicity, and integrity.

Fun: from our logo and bold brand colors to our ambitious flavors, every interaction with Open Fuel delivers an air of lightness and levity. Getting the most out of ourselves come race day is a serious endeavor, but it doesn’t need to be void of tastiness or fun.

Simplicity: at the end of the day, successful fueling is just getting the right nutrients into your body. We keep it easy – 60g of carbs and 500mg of electrolytes per 500ml serving. No need to mix and match different products or worry about the latest unproven “magical” compound.

Innovative Integrity: we do not want to rest on the wasteful and profit-over-everything laurels already established in the market. Endurance nutrition is a pretty saturated space, we have no illusions of matching the research-power and marketing budgets of Precision Hydration, Maurten, Neversecond, etc. What we can do is use our small size to take what we don’t like about the space, and experiment with improving it. This includes limiting waste in packaging (why does every bag have to have a new plastic scoop?), elevating female athletes, letting our customers influence our product-development, and not having a profit-driven mandate.

As we work to bring on our first crew of sponsored athletes, it’s also very important to me to fairly compensate those athletes, not just with free product, but with dollars and race support.

Join Our Community

I’m putting a call-to-action out into the universe. Any ideas you have about nutrition or running a brand, please send them my way. Think we should let athletes make commission? Want us to look into including potassium? Should Open Fuel be used for nutrition at raves or music fests? Literally, any idea is welcome.

Going forward, I am committed to documenting my journey, with full-transparency, via Late Entry. As part of that, I also launched a YouTube channel to pair this written format with video storytelling.

Right now, we are hyper-focused on launching our Shopify site (NOW LIVE!), designing our new packaging (to improve the user-experience and minimize plastic-use), and finding the right US private-label manufacturer (currently it’s all done in Cape Town, but we are in talks with a Utah-based facility). In my next post I’ll be diving deeper into what I’ve learned as we’re working to find the best solutions for each of those needs.

Thanks for reading! Make sure to…

Check out our eCommerce site: www.openfuel.co
Follow us on Instagram: @openfuel
Subscribe on YouTube: Late Entry / Open Fuel Channel