The Locker Room Problem
In 2019, Will Carr was a sophomore at an NJCAA school in the midwest, playing 28 minutes a night and eating whatever the training staff put in the locker room. Protein bars. Lots of them. RXBARs and Quest bars stacked three deep in the refrigerator.
"I started reading the labels one afternoon and just got frustrated," Will says. "Egg whites are fine. But then you've got natural flavors, and chicory root fiber, and canola oil sneaking in as a coating agent. This is what we're calling fuel?"
He wasn't alone. A growing cohort of athletes—particularly those who'd been exposed to Paul Saladino's ancestral nutrition work or listened to coaches talk about seed oil inflammation—was quietly rejecting the mainstream bar market.
The Bison Thesis
Bison became the answer for two reasons. First, the fat profile. Grass-finished bison is naturally higher in omega-3 fatty acids and CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) compared to conventional beef. The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 is roughly 3:1—significantly better than the 15:1 or worse found in most grain-fed cattle.
Second, sourcing integrity. The American bison industry has never industrialized the way cattle farming has. Bison are almost universally pasture-raised because they are difficult to confine and require open land to thrive. You get traceability almost by default.
Tallow as the Binding Mechanism
Once Will settled on bison as the protein anchor, the fat question followed naturally. Bison tallow—rendered fat from grass-finished bison—became both a flavor carrier and a clean alternative to the palm oil, sunflower oil, and fractionated coconut oil used in most bars.
The challenge was texture. Tallow has a higher melting point than most plant-based oils, which creates a bar that holds its shape in a gym bag but can feel waxy if the ratio is off. Will spent 14 months working with a food scientist to get the fat-to-fiber ratio right.
What Came Next
The first test batch of 200 bars shipped to friends and former teammates in the fall of 2023. Eighty percent reordered within 30 days. That signal was enough.
Genesee launched its Founders 250 cohort in early 2024—250 spots at founder pricing for the people who believed before there was a product to believe in. The cohort sold out in 11 days.
The bar is real. The sourcing is real. And the mission—putting a genuinely clean, nutrient-dense protein bar in every locker room in America—is just getting started.