 What is up EHP fan? In this week's episode of Inside EHP, we are taking you deep inside our sister brand called Bless Protein. Bless started a good six years ago when Katya Lee's Henry, one of our OG athletes, my little sister, she sat me down in Vegas when we were there for Olympia and she said, is you have to create a plant-based protein and it has to be the best. All natural everything and it has to taste incredible. It has to be a complete protein and she put me on the mission. I took the challenge. It took a good two and a half years to create and when we created it, we felt we needed to pay homage to the plant-based community and create something that was so special but also normalize the plant-based movement and so we thought you know what everything looks cardboardy, everything looks grassy, we're going to create an incredible package, bring the whole kind of vibe to the brand and we came up with Bless Protein. The brand has been amazing, it's been exploding all over the world. We're very grateful for all our retail partnerships that we have. We are across all Vitaminshop stores, Throne America, in Australia, we've partnered with all the key retail partners we have here including Chemis Warehouse and our specialty retail partners as well as New Zealand, in Canada we've got Popeyes and Supplement Kings and over in the UK we're on Amazon and our direct consumer e-commerce site. We continue to collaborate with key partners such as Gelatissimo which is an awesome gelato brand to help them create a plant-based gelato. We've just recently partnered with Bless Bowls. I've been working closely with Sarah and Amelia in our team upstairs and we've been working on this little secret mission to create the best plant protein bar in the world so in this episode you guys will get to go and see Sarah and Amelia venture out. You will think you're eating a Snickers or a Cherry Ripe or some incredible candy bar. It's clean, the macros are clean, the calories are only sitting at 174 calories and this is what this incredible baby looks like. Hey team, I'm Amelia, Product Development Specialist here at EHP and this is Sarah. Hey guys, I'm Sarah, Product Project Manager here at EHPLibs. We work on the new product development so we work on products from start and formulation process until the end so manufacturing as well, working out packaging, label requirements and all of that so here today we're just looking at our Bless Bar facility and just making sure the production of our Bless Bar is perfect. Perfect, perfect production. Yeah, so we've been working on this project for probably almost three years so it's so exciting to see it come to life today. We have literally searched all over the world for a manufacturer who can bring this vision to life so we literally looked all over the world. We've tried samples from different manufacturers in the United States, Europe and it turns out that the manufacturer that could make these amazing bars is just in our front doorstep about an hour away from the office here in Australia so here we are. Yeah and we have done lots of rounds of bench top samples so we probably worked for four to six months with the Research and Development Technicians here at this manufacturing facility to get the bars absolutely perfect with perfect level of moisture in the base, the right level of gooey caramel layer or for these bars the raspberry layer and the perfect level of chocolate on the outside so we're actually double enrobing them in chocolate. Extra decadent. All right guys, you want to see where the magic happens? Let's go inside. So we've just got dressed into our PPE, we've got our lovecoats, gloves, hair nets, everything make sure jewelry and whatnot is off so that everything stays nice and clean during production. So we're doing our first run of the Bliss Protein Bars, the chocolate rice week flavour. We're super excited to finally see these come to life. We've already done a small scale trial run. This is the actual production for the bars. Yeah yeah so we're going to be seeing all the blending of the ingredients, they're going to be cooking the caramel, rolling out the base, layering the caramel on, coating them with chocolate, chopping the bars and packaging as well. This is the Sloe, it's a production supervisor. Nice to meet you. So we've just rolled out the base for the Bliss Bars and we're working on getting the moisture absolutely perfect so we've tasted a couple of the rolls and just increased the, what was it again? You meant it? Emily knows the technical terms to make sure they're nice and soft and moist. And now we're just working on the caramel as well so we're just tasting it, it's tasting amazing but we need to get the wheel that's just cooling the caramel down to the right temperature to make sure it rolls off nicely onto the bars. So what you just saw back then, we had some cracking in the base so that means that it's a little bit more dry and dense so we've just taken it back out, added a bit more humectant there to make sure that it's a bit more moist so that when you're having the bars it's a better experience, we don't want them to be dry, we want them to be a good texture so that they're the best tasting plant-based bars around. So the line is about 100 meters long and then it will go down there into the other room and then we will look at the chocolate numeroving and also the packaging component. None of like raspberry layer that's on the base to make sure that it's a correct thickness so we actually increased it last time we were here so you do get a bit more of that raspberry flavor. It's delicious. So the line is about 100 meters long and then it will go down there into the other room and then we will look at the chocolate numeroving and also the packaging component. As the bars come off the line we're just checking for the quality making sure they all look as they should. They're checked further out the line before they come through here to make sure that the right weight to make sure the matcodes and everything are correct. I don't remember what I was gonna say. So we're also checking to make sure that they're fully coated in chocolate so as you can see this one's missing a little bit on the side here so this one wouldn't pass the quality control. Also it's a double bar. But in the packaging yeah so we're just checking that everything's perfectly aligned and the barcodes scannable and it all looks as it should. We are here at Blest Bones today so Blest Protein has because we're super excited that we have collaborated with them to create a limited edition, a soluble and sweetening flavor so you can get all of your Blest Protein needs at Blest Bones. We're here today with Hallie and Kev and we're about to go inside to taste test our limited edition flavors with them. So we go with peanut butter, Blest Chocolate Milk, it's chocolate castor. It is a vegan so all of the options here are vegan because we know that Blest Bones is made for those who are vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free so just make sure you can order something you could try and it is 100% delicious. I'm Hallie and I approve this message. It makes it. Yeah and it's not like that gritty protein flavor at all. It's so delicious. That's one thing that's so great about Blest is when you put it in any of your cooking like smoothies, pancakes, it's like it doesn't leave that gritty plant protein texture and this just tastes so amazing. And like easy on the side. Like no issues at all. Yeah as someone who is sensitive to whey, I can't eat any of our whey proteins and Blest is the only plant protein which my stomach can actually handle and to taste delicious. It's so good. We're gonna need another one please. We made our amazing collaborations and we hope if you guys have tried them let us know how much you love them as well. Make sure to follow Blest Bones and Blest Protein on Instagram, TikTok and all the socials and yeah it's been amazing. Welcome you back to another episode of our founder spotlight video series. I am so excited to speak with the CEO and founder of two of the most dynamic brands in sports nutrition and supplements. BHP Labs and Blest. Coming all the way from Australia I'm delighted to welcome Isbasha. Thank you Is for being with us today. Thank you so much Sharon it's an absolute pleasure. Huge inspiration behind Blest was this this real movement which is the plant based lifestyle. We didn't just want to dibble and dabble and be another brand in a cardboard looking bottle or bag and be a typical green and brown kind of products. We really wanted to appeal to our demography which is a Gen Z in the millennials and it can be mainstream and so that's where the real kind of catalyst behind Blest was. And I'd like to hear about the partnership between the two of you and how Blest came to be and how you came together to build this this new brand of a very hot category especially you know with the plant base being so important to a lot of consumers today. Can you tell us tell our viewers about the story of Blest? Pretty simple I guess so I don't know I mean I joined EHP Labs I was a part of a part of their team in the very beginning I think I was honest I was one of like I was one of the first first athletes so that was pretty cool loved the oxy shred I got to try all that first I was super excited about that and so I was with the team for a while and I became vegan plant based out of nowhere and I was just telling Is about my new lifestyle and hey I actually switched to non dairy this and non dairy that and I was like you know what there's a few vegan proteins out there but nothing too special and I've tried a lot of them and I just I'm not impressed so I think we should try to we should create a vegan protein and he was like yeah Pat that's actually a great idea a couple years later he's in the lab sending me videos him in his coat and his in the lab getting together some concoctions and then he would send me samples and he's like hi I have a surprise and I was like he's like looking your male and I got a surprise for you and he sent me these a bunch of these flavors to test out for this plant-based protein and he was like guess what we're gonna name it and I'm like what he's like blessed I'm like because I have a tattoo on my side it says blessed and that's my whole thing it's just I'm so I'm so blessed so I think that blessed is not only a protein but we made it a whole lifestyle being thankful for every day and yeah it's really neat about how it is talked about in terms of you know his life story and how he seemed to be and I think it's kind of a continuation for the next chapter in the book of the story that you guys have built so what are you guys most proud of I always said is we're gonna make blessed protein like the best vegan protein on the market and I just said it so confidently because I'm someone who I like I believe in manifesting and I believe the same things but don't you say that I like you gotta believe it you gotta really think that that's what's happening so I was just I'm so proud of us really it's truly remarkable to say this little idea and this concept that was once upon a time my thing like a plant of the seed is now this kind of you know huge orchard and so for me the proudest thing is to see our amazing brand partners people who we regard as family like Cat all the people in the corporate HQ that makes what we do in reality so we can truly impact people's lives