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1.10.14

You may never have tasted Plumpy’nut, the playfully-named, but serious-as-can-be nutrition bars designed to treat severe malnutrition – and we hope you never have to – but the team at This Bar Saves Lives wants you to know everything about them. In the latest twist on the ‘one-for-one’ model (think TOM’s Shoes, Warby Parker) founders Ryan, Todd and Ravi have created an uber-snackable, sustainable line of health bars – each of which, once purchased, goes toward the purchase of one Plumpy’nut packet that will feed a child in need.

Along with their board, which includes philanthropic leaders such as actress Kristen Bell and GOOD Inc.’s Ben Goldhirsh, the This Bar Saves Lives founders are hoping to provide a win-win solution for those who care deeply about both ending severe hunger globally and ending the less severe, but nonetheless vital, afternoon munchies – their fitting motto: “We eat together”.  There are three flax and almond-based bar flavors, which, quite honestly, we’d enjoy snacking on no matter what. But, as anyone who’s walked in a pair of TOM’s shoes knows, the shopping experience is just that much more enjoyable knowing that each little purchase translates into greater provision for those who need it most.

Involvement in such a serious cause as global hunger on a daily basis could bring this team down, instead, we found them to have an incredible sense of humor and enthusiasm that seems to buoy them through each day’s worth of statistics–and emerging solutions. Here is a glimpse inside a typical day with co-founder Ravi Patel’s for a closer look…

A Day In The Life with This Bar Saves Lives Ravi Patel

6:00 am:

Still sleeping. Probably receiving emails from my mother making sure I’m eating right, and asking me how our collective search for a wife is going. Also, probably receiving emails from Ryan, who is filming a show in Hawaii right now, but still manages to work on This Bar stuff 24-hours per day (it’s annoying).

7:00 am:

Kinda like the 6 a.m. hour, except now I’m also getting texts from these people, asking me if I got their emails.

8:00 am:

I wake up, and a) go running, or b) lay in bed reading emails, news, and Facebook. This is usually when I also check all brand mentions of @thisbar on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, along with our daily updated ticker, which tells us how many meals we have donated to date – always an awesome rush!

9:00 am:

Time to leave my bedroom and go upstairs, aka, “This Bar Headquarters.” Our Director of Digital, Matt Saperstein, aka “Saps,” is already working, and has clearly had too much coffee. He has a ton of questions about various social media “things,” and I answer them as I try to make breakfast for us. Usually eggs with avocado and veggies, OJ, coffee, maybe some curried sweet potato and/or bacon. All this happens while I take a call from Save the Children (our charity partner that distributes the Plumpynut donations throughout the world) about how we can “pre-position” our donations for meal packets needed in emergency-response situations. I have yet to shower.

10:00 am:

Interns are showing up. I have to remind people to remove their shoes, because people have no respect for the indoors. I sit down with the marketing team to discuss our recent “gift consciously” promo from the holidays, which unlocked a bonus donation to our charity partner, Save the Children.

10:30 am:

We have a quick founder’s meeting to discuss new T-shirt and marketing designs that Todd has been working on, our new street art initiative for hunger awareness with TalentHouse and Creative Visions, and the update on our new bar development (just tasted samples for the PB&J bar and it’s delicious!).

11:00 am:

Call with PR at Soho House, with whom we are planning an event to introduce Soho members to This Dessert Saves Lives

11:15 am:

I’m trying to sift through emails while also catching up on texts. I’m on this text thread with six of my close friends in LA, and it’s really fun and funny, but they also send like 300 texts a day, none of which ever have any real information in them.

11:45 am:

Chat with Devlin about cool ways to encourage companies to stock their shelves with this bar. The best idea so far is to offer some sort of contest where we track exactly how many lives each company has saved just by snacking consciously.

Noon:

For lunch today, Saps is making smoothies with spinach, kale, peanut butter, chia seeds, and stuff like that. It actually tastes pretty good! Getting off of the phone with Stop Hunger Now, with whom we are organizing a local food-packing event, as well as coordinating booster programs in which we donate our bars to an organization and they then sell them to raise money for their charity/school program.

1:00 pm:

Update call with Ryan and Todd, and Kristen Bell who is in Austin, Texas taking our meeting with Whole Foods Headquarters about getting our bars nationally approved. Very excited!

1:30 pm:

Quick chat with the marketing people to discuss the success of our collaboration during the Every10 campaign, a hunger awareness campaign we launched alongside a number of awesome like-minded companies.

2:00 pm:

Speaking with Omaze, my friend Matt Pohlson’s company, about a collaboration that would provide a once-in-a-lifetime experience to people while raising money for charity.

2:30 pm:

I’m snacking while watching Pardon The Interruption on ESPN. Meanwhile, Saps is pitching me all these ideas for social media, like cool stop-motion videos we should do, and some ideas for reaching out to mommy bloggers. We also sit down with our interns to discuss a cool video project they are going to do.

3:00 pm:

Todd just showed me an incredible GoPro video of him surfing! I have to leave to go to an audition.

3:15 pm:

On the phone with the boys as we discuss some marketing ideas for our product launch in every California Sprouts and Intelligencia Café.  Most of our ideas involve donating more meals.

5:00 pm:

Just got out of my audition. Mom just got mad at me for never calling home, even though we talk like three times a week.

6:00 pm:

Off to a dinner with some people who run the booster program at a nearby school – they are going to sell our bars to raise money for their program, all while helping to feed starving children in Africa.

9:00 pm:

Watch The Shark Tank while working and making plans for Aspen with my buddies. Mom calls – she can’t sleep.

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