By JoJé Founder Jess Cerra
Almost 14 years ago, I launched JoJé Bar as an outlet for my passion for racing bicycles and enjoying healthy and delicious foods.
I started baking the first JoJé Bars for myself as a way of blending wholesome, gluten-free ingredients with flavors and textures that tasted like homemade cookies.
Soon, my friends and training partners took notice, and based on their encouragement and through working all hours of the night to keep baking, the company JoJé was born.
Since then, I’ve gone through every possible up and down you can imagine as a founder, navigating every part of the business and surviving every fire drill.
Over time, the work paid off, and JoJé developed a loyal fanbase in the cycling world, with hundreds of athletes falling in love with the flavors and ingredients that I poured my heart and energy into making. We were picked up by REI, and lots of local cycling shops along the West Coast.
When Covid happened, I was diving into a whole new set of challenges just as I was presented the opportunity to have JoJé join the team of brands at Alete Active Nutrition.
Without question, the inclusive ethos of the company sang to me, and I knew Alete would be the perfect home for JoJé, allowing a team to help me in the areas that needed the most attention while I could invest my time where I shine: product development, representation, and community building.
Of course, I don’t think any of us were expecting the marketplace that would follow Covid. With so many players, the potential for continued growth in the energy bar market started to fade.
Given this, today we announced that our team has made the difficult decision to take a step back to reevaluate the long-term trajectory of JoJé and how it fits into today’s hyper-competitive energy bar market.
To give ourselves space to develop the best path forward, we are taking a pause in production and will run through our current stock. We will remain out of stock for the indefinite future.
When you’ve been laser focused on one thing for so long it’s hard to take a step back when you’ve descended into the valley and realize you have another mountain to climb. As an athlete, instinctively you want to attack that climb, but as I’ve matured (as an athlete and founder), taking a step back doesn’t make you weak or scared, it gives you the clarity and strength to do what no one expects.
For instance, what I was not expecting, joining the Alete team, is how much my skillset and flavor prowess would flow into the other brands on the team: SaltStick, Bonk Breaker, and Vitassium.
And how much that skillset would grow into leading innovation for all the Alete brands with an amazing team that I can learn from and continue to cultivate both product and community experiences that I believe in whole-heartedly.
So I’m not going to stop climbing mountains (as if!), but I will be focusing my efforts completely on SaltStick, Bonk Breaker, and Vitassium.
You may have already tried some of the products I’ve developed for these brands, like the Green Apple SaltStick FastChews or the OMG! Bonk Breaker Energy Chews and new line of layered Plant-based Protein Bars.
I’m incredibly humbled by everyone who has been a part of the JoJé community over the last 14 years.
Thank you to my husband Sam, the eternal unpaid intern, his family and my father-in-law, John, who was an active part of the JoJé business for years, my parents and little sis, and all of you (many of you with deep and special JoJé stories), for your fearless support of me, and ultimately JoJé.
If you’re still reading, thank you for sticking around and again for your support of JoJé Bar. I don’t know what’s next, but I do know it will be exciting and encourage you to follow any of the pages tagged in the comment of this post for updates on what I’m up to lately.
Thanks again!
