Bill Keith left college in 2005 to help turn his sick father’s homemade protein bar recipe into Perfect Bar, a family business that Forbes later valued at $300 million.
With his 12 siblings, Keith built the company from a small home operation into a nationwide brand known for its refrigerated protein bars.
The family’s journey began during a difficult time. Their father, Bud Keith, had melanoma, a type of skin cancer, and could no longer travel to support the household. The family faced growing medical bills, a mortgage that was two months behind and just $1,000 in the bank, according to Forbes.
At the time, Bill was 22 and studying at College of the Redwoods. Rather than continue his education, he decided to help his family turn their father’s recipe into a business.
His younger siblings, including Leigh, Amyas and Charisse, joined him in the effort. Leigh was 19, Amyas was 18 and Charisse was 17 when they began working to bring the product to stores.
The family had little money, limited equipment and a product that many grocery industry insiders believed would struggle to succeed. Unlike most protein bars, Perfect Bar needed refrigeration, making it harder to sell in stores that usually placed such snacks on regular shelves.
Despite these challenges, the Keith siblings kept going. Their work eventually helped Perfect Snacks reach thousands of stores across the United States and become a recognized name in the refrigerated snack market.
The Perfect Bar recipe came from Bud, who developed it during family road trips in the 1990s. He traveled with his wife, Barbara, and their growing family while working as a salesman of nutritional supplements and omega oils.
The family once traveled in a 1982 Dodge recreational vehicle, with Bud bringing his children along rather than leaving them at home.
During those trips, he mixed peanut butter with protein powder and other ingredients to make a more nutritious snack. The children sometimes sold the homemade bars around their neighborhood to earn pocket money. Bud also included them as free extras with some supplement orders.
As the family grew to 13 children, the recipe remained part of their lives. But everything changed when Bud’s illness became worse in 2005.
With their father’s health declining, the older children decided to build a business around the recipe they already knew how to make.
Their first major step was selling the family’s bed-and-breakfast in Northern California. The sale left them with about $100,000 after taxes, giving them the money needed to begin production.
They spent most of that money on a used candy-wrapping machine, which helped them package the bars for sale. The remaining funds went toward ingredients, including organic peanuts and honey, and other business expenses.
The siblings had to learn quickly. They made the bars, packaged orders and searched for customers while working with very limited resources.
Leigh later described the pressure behind their decision.
“With all of your . . . finances invested in peanuts and honey to the very last dollar, you sure as heck got to figure out how to sell this bar,” she said.
The family branded the product Perfect Bar and began approaching natural-food stores, grocery chains, vitamin shops and other potential customers. They also sold at farmers markets, festivals and directly to people in their community.
Bill took on much of the sales work, traveling along the West Coast to persuade retailers to give the unfamiliar product a chance. Meanwhile, Leigh and their other siblings focused on making the bars and filling orders.
Perfect Bar’s early years were far from easy. By 2006, the business had struggled to gain enough customers, and the family had only about a month of operating money left.
Many customers were also unfamiliar with the idea of buying a protein bar from a refrigerator.
The breakthrough came when Bill met a Whole Foods store manager at a music-and-art festival in Northern California. She liked the product and believed the store’s customers might be willing to try a refrigerated bar made without preservatives.
Perfect Snacks received a 30-day trial at a Whole Foods store in Berkeley, California.
Bill moved close to the store to promote the product. Unable to afford a hotel, he slept in his car and showered at a gym. He spent his days offering samples and explaining the product to shoppers.
The effort paid off. The store sold about $20,000 worth of Perfect Bars in one month, more than the company had sold during the previous six months combined.
Whole Foods then expanded the product into 10 more stores in Northern California.
“That was the match that started the wildfire,” Bill said.
The new retail opportunities gave the family a chance to grow beyond its small operation. Perfect Snacks reached $1 million in revenue within about two years of that breakthrough, according to the company’s history reported in Forbes.
A deal with Costco followed, helping the brand reach more customers. The business also continued to grow through in-store product demonstrations, which allowed shoppers to taste the bars before buying them.
Perfect Snacks continued expanding as demand for fresh and convenient food grew. Its refrigerated protein bars helped establish a place for fresh snacks in a market long dominated by products that could remain on shelves without refrigeration.
In 2015, private equity firm VMG invested in Perfect Snacks. The funding helped the company place larger orders with manufacturers and meet the growing needs of grocery retailers.
By 2018, Perfect Snacks had reported $84 million in sales, while Forbes estimated the company’s value at $300 million. At that point, its products were available in more than 27,000 stores nationwide, including major retailers such as Target, Walmart, Kroger and Trader Joe’s.
The brand also developed new products, including Perfect Kids, designed for lunch boxes, and Perfect Bites, smaller pieces sold in resealable containers.
Even as the business grew, the Keith family continued to own the majority of the company, according to Forbes‘ reporting.
Growth also brought new challenges. Because the bars required refrigeration, the company had to manage delivery costs, refrigerated transportation and competition for limited space in grocery-store coolers.
These problems were different from those faced by companies selling shelf-stable snacks. Perfect Snacks had to convince retailers that a refrigerated bar deserved space normally used for other fresh foods.
Still, the family had moved far beyond its early days of making bars by hand and packaging orders with limited equipment.
Bud Keith died in 2009, four years after his children began building the business around his recipe. He did not live to see the full scale of the company his children developed.
Leigh reflected on the company’s future in a statement included in Forbes’ reporting: “We have the story, the product and the people that can really build this to be a household name and become hopefully an iconic brand for generations.”
The Keith family’s experience shows how a product developed at home can reach a national market when a business finds customers willing to give it a chance. For Perfect Snacks, the journey began with a father’s recipe and a family determined to keep going during one of the hardest periods of their lives.
Related: Doris Buffett gave $30 million in 2008 to launch a scholarship fund for domestic-violence survivors; by 2016, it had awarded more than $35 million
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