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16 ORANGE COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL Local breaking news: www.ocbj.com MAY 4, 2015

Fitness-focused small business abounds inOrange County, and protein is a particularemphasis.At least three makers of powders, bars and

ready-to-drink supplements are based here, allin Irvine: PureFit Inc., Orgain Inc., andBioNutritional Research Group Inc.All began as ventures that the founders said

are dedicated to making a healthier proteinproduct.Each makes products

for different buyers in agrowing industry—barform only, plant-based,and mass market.New York-based

market researcherIBISWorld showedthe U.S. “meal replace-ment product” marketgrowing 6% a yearfrom 2008 to 2013 to

$2.4 billion. It said growth would continue ata 4% annual clip through 2018 to $2.9 billion.

Accidental Purist “Nutrition bars should be nutritional,” said

Robb Dorf, chief executive of PureFit. It makes protein bars with no dairy, wheat,

gluten, artificial sweeteners, or trans fats, hesaid.“All are 18 grams of protein, all kosher, all

non-[genetically modified],” he said.Dorf said he didn’t plan to hit the nutrition

hot buttons of recent years when he foundedPureFit in 2001.

Several Inspired By DesireFor Healthier Products

By PAUL HUGHES

Protein Powers Sales as Meal-Substitute Demand Grows

“We just wanted to make the cleanest barwe could,” he said.The bars got more attention as gluten-free

demand grew and vegan eating came moreinto vogue.That helped the company expand from spe-

cialty stores into general outlets.Dorf said PureFit’s protein bars are in Al-

bertsons and will be added to Bellingham,Wash.-based grocery chain Haggen, which isadding 11 local locations.He plans another run at Costco, where Pure-

Fit had success seven years ago but left dueto competitor discounting.“The bars are worth $2 to $3, and you have

[other bars] selling 10 for 10 bucks,” he said. Dorf said PureFit still also targets specialty

retailers. Lake Forest-based distributor TorcanoIndustries is getting him back into bike stores,and he wants to sell to coffeehouses, too.PureFit distributes in 15 foreign countries;

international sales are about half the business,he said.The company has five employees and rev-

enue of $5 million to $10 million. Dorf is thesole owner. “We’ve politely declined many, many op-

portunities” for equity investments, he said.PureFit remains “very focused on just

bars” for its product line.“The protein powder market is absolutely

brutal,” Dorf said, referring to that productmarket’s competitiveness.

No Pain, No GainOrgain makes powders and ready-to-drink

shakes.Founder Andrew Abraham was a board-

certified physician. He had also been diagnosed with cancer as

a high school senior in 1999. He wanted to maintain his health but said

All in the family: Orgain founder Andrew Abraham drinking some of the company's product withwife Kathy and sons Joshua and Isaac

nutritional shakes at the time of his diagnosisused “cheap ingredients.”So Abraham started blending his own and

grew more interested in nutrition as a busi-ness. He said he was more passionate aboutnutrition than medicine and can help manymore people than through a medical practice.The cancer went into remission, and the

company launched in 2009.“People are health-conscious and willing to

pay for premium products,” he said.Orgain’s offerings are plant-based and in-

clude pea protein, chia and sprouted brownrice.They’re sold in 25,000 retail stores, includ-

ing Costco, Vitamin Shoppe and onAmazon.com.Orgain has 15 employees and a 16,000-

square-foot headquarters off Jamboree Roadand Barranca Parkway. Abraham declined to disclose revenue fig-

ures. Inc. Magazine set Orgain’s 2012 rev-enue at $9 million on a 2013 list of the 5,000fastest-growing firms, and the Business Jour-nal estimates its 2014 revenue at more thantwice that, or $25 million.One of Orgain’s new products is a protein-

infused almond milk. It also contributed to aprotein-infused yogurt from Londonderry,N.H.-based Stonyfield Farm Inc., whosechairman, Gary Hirshberg, is an Orgain in-vestor.“We’re focused on improving the lives of

people by improving (on) inferior products,”Abraham said.The company plans to add bars to its prod-

uct mix of powders and drinks by the end ofthe year.

Be EnergyBioNutritional Research Group—BNRG,

Dorf: started proteinbars maker in 2001

� Protein 18

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18 ORANGE COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL Local breaking news: www.ocbj.com MAY 4, 2015

He’d been formulat-ing protein productson contract for othercompanies since theearly 1980s, and heholds a bachelor’s de-gree in accountingwith a minor in chem-istry.He said the best pro-

tein ended up beinghydrolyzed—brokendown into aminoacids—which made iteasier to digest. “That was the defining link,” he said.Protein powders were his first product. He

added bars—and company investors—in2003, and ready-to-drink products came on-line by about 2010.Lawrence said a recent nutrition trade jour-

nal estimate of $60 million in revenue for the

company was too low but that, “We’re not at$100 million yet.”

Other PlayersOrange County attracts other companies in-

volved in protein purveying—including topets.Two of the largest are Nutrilite in

Buena Park, owned by Ada, Mich.-basedAmway Corp., and Herbalife Ltd., with op-erational headquarters in Los Angeles andlocal facilities in several OC cities, includingLake Forest.Others include:� Laguna Beach-based Marifit sells “pro-

tein popper” snacks in 40 locations of SantaAna-based Nekter Juice Bar Inc.

� General nutritional bar maker Rise Baris in Irvine.

� Irvine-based Nutegrity, owned byOmega Protein Corp. in Houston, makesprotein and fish oil products.

� Vitatech Nutritional Sciences Inc. is a61-year-old private-label maker of powdersand capsules in Tustin.

� Supplement maker Doctors Best Inc. inSan Clemente recently added three protein-related products to its lineup.

� Los Angeles-based retailer Protein forPets has local stores in Anaheim, SanClemente and Laguna Niguel.

� OC even has its own Kickstarter-fundedstartup. Irvine-based HIIT Bottle LLC—HIIT is

an exercise term that stands for high-intensityinterval training—raised more than $125,000from about 2,800 backers on the crowdfund-ing site to put its sleek, metallic-looking pro-tein bottle into production.Husband-and-wife founders Christian and

Hannah Valencia said the ball in the bottomof the bottle better mixes protein powder toprevent clumping. It’s scheduled to ship in June. �

which sounds like “be energy” when saidaloud—makes all three kinds of products:bars, powders, and drinks, under the Power-Crunch brand name.It has grown from 25 employees four years

ago to about 150, 40 of whom are in Irvine,as founder and Chief Executive KevinLawrence hired a national sales force to tar-get “food, drug, and mass” market retailers.Its protein bars are in Walmart, for instance,

and look strikingly similar to the Neapolitansugar wafers we ate as kids.They’re also pleasing to the palate, he said.“They need to taste good” to attract a wider

audience.He started the firm in 1993 as he sought a

product his infant son could drink. The babycouldn’t drink mother’s milk or formula.

Lawrence: companymakes bars, pow-ders, drinks underPowerCrunch brandname

Protein� from page 16

You’ve heard about the entrepreneur whobuys a franchise and grows a business as partof a larger system.

Manoucher Khashe is the other kind.He bought a former franchise and runs it in

traditional mom-and-pop style, a rare situa-tion in the industry and one that made busi-ness a tad complicated in the restaurant’searlier years.Khashe’s MSM Burgers LLC owns

Wedge Burger on 17th Street in Costa Mesa,a one-off joint that sells burgers, fries, sodasand shakes.You can get a chicken sandwich or veggie

burger, but at an old-school hamburger shop,why would you? Standard fare at the Wedge—Khashe’s son-

in-law chose the name for the famed nearbysurf spot in Newport Beach—are the single-or double-decker burgers. But “Manouch,” as friends and family call

him, is flexible.“We can do five-by-five,” Khashe said—

five patties and five slices of cheese—“what-ever you want.” He declined to offer an annual revenue fig-

ure but said he moves 450 to 700 hamburgerpatties daily.The Iranian immigrants are wife, Sima, and

brother-in-law Mansour Akbarzadeh, whoinvested from the start and lives and works inNew Mexico. Khashe remembers the day they bought the

double drive-thru place.“Seven-seven-O-one,” he said, or July 7,

2001. They paid $375,000.Then it got complicated.

Tricky BusinessThe restaurant had been part of a chain

called EZ Take Out LLC that started in 1969in Upland as Instant-Go Burgers, accordingto franchise documents filed in California in2012 by EZ Take Out.Two affiliated companies in the first two

decades of operation were EZ Out LP andTake Out Burger Inc., the documentsshowed.Names and building design of the early lo-

cations were similar enough to Irvine-basedburger chain In-N-Out Burgers Inc. that by1992, it agreed to change its name to EZ TakeOut, according to a 2003 letter reviewing thedeal that Manouch keeps in a manila folder. He said he bought the restaurant from two

Mom-and-Pop Shop ServesBasics Like the Big Guys

By PAUL HUGHES

Ex-Franchised Burger Joint Catches Wave as Indie

partners who had owned it since 1992, firstas a franchise and then as an independentstore. The then-owners of EZ Take Out cameto him in 2007 and told him he was still con-nected to the franchise. “They said you gotta pay,” said Mehdi

Kazerooni, a business broker and longtimefamily friend who helped Manouch and Simanavigate the original purchase and still helpsthe couple with the business. The agreed-upon fee was $500 a month,

plus annual increases of about 3%. Paymentscontinued for several years, but eventuallythe Khashes stopped paying because,Manouch said, “They didn’t do anything [forus].”A news report in 2009 said EZ Take Out

LLC—now based in Aliso Viejo—had signeda franchise deal for 50 locations in the MiddleEast and North Africa over 10 years. Thechain at the time claimed eight locations—it’speak, the franchise documents show. Two EZTake Outs were in OC, one in Yorba Lindaand Manouch’s in Costa Mesa. “This was the best location in quality and

volume,” Kazerooni said.The 2012 franchise documents show

EZ Take Out LLC was established in May2003.They also show that Chief Executive Shan-

non Bane had been chief financial officer fora 67-unit Carl’s Jr. franchisee and worked ininvestment banking.The chain’s franchisee in the Middle East

had opened just one, in Bahrain. Reviewers on the Yelp website indicate that

the original Upland location and the YorbaLinda site closed in 2011 or 2012. It’s unknown if the chain’s other locations

are still open. A message left at a phone num-ber for EZ Take Out LLC, from the 2012 doc-uments wasn’t returned.In July 2013, Manouch, Sima and Mansour

changed the restaurant’s name to WedgeBurger.

All in the FamilyChicago-based restaurant industry re-

searcher Technomic Inc. Executive VicePresident Darren Tristano said the fran-chisee-indie operator arrow doesn’t oftenswing this way but that when it does, itlooks a lot like the situation with WedgeBurger.“What typically happens is a corporate en-

tity … goes [out of business],” he said. Fran-chisees might keep operating, he said,sometimes under a new name. But moststores in the system close.Wedge Burger employs 13.

“Fourteen, if you count me,” Manouchsaid.“Eighteen, if you count you,” said John

McMurray, the son-in-law who chose thebusiness’ name. He meant it as testimony to how hard

Manouch works his hamburger stand.“He’s here every day,” McMurray said.Manouch and Sima helped run small fam-

ily businesses—a restaurant and a dry clean-ers—in Colorado before moving to Californiain 1999, where eldest daughter, Elham,who’s married to McMurray, was relocatingto practice dentistry. The couple, along with Sima’s brother,

looked for about 18 months for a small food-related business to buy, and decided on therestaurant on Jan. 1, 2001.They liked the double drive-thru lanes and

small site—easy for a family to run withoutmuch trouble, low overhead, and “in a greatlocation with good traffic and absolutelygreat customers,” Manouch said. The well-worn comment cards Wedge

Burger lets customers redeem for a freecheeseburger when they fill them out and re-turn testify to customer response.Almost everyone knows and likes ham-

burgers and fries, he said.“How could you go wrong with a burger?” �

Snack time: Anthony Noriega hands customer his order on recent Friday

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