Bulk Bar
Topic: sustainable service design in the supplement industry
Setting: in collaboration with Alison Reingold
Opportunity
As a fitness enthusiast, I learned how I could increase my muscle gains by taking supplements and incorporated them into my diet, but I also noticed how much waste these containers produce. First, many of them come in huge plastic tubs with a significant amount of slackfill, with nearly half the tub being empty. Second, these tubs are discarded as often as every 9 days as trash or occasionally, recycled. As trash, they will never biodegrade and even when they are recycled, they can only be downcycled, which invests a huge amount of energy into making a new plastic object that then gets sent to the dump itself.
Discovery
We researched various sustainability initiatives and found that beer growlers are becoming popular as a way for people to reuse glass containers while interacting with their favorite brewery more often. There is also a rising interest in customization across retail experiences. From Subway to Chipotle, brands are succeeding by offering customers the chance to Have It Your Way. Finally, consumers are becoming more concerned about waste and demanding more sustainable options from every category of products.
We found ourselves asking supplement users, “You tailor every part of your life. Why not the supplements that you’re putting in your body?”
Ideation
First is a physical station, The Bulk Bar, with bulk containers of all popular supplements. Customers use this station to create their own blend, based on their goals. These stations can set up in gyms, juice bars, supplement stores, or even as a pop-up location like a food truck. By having all of the major supplements in one place, we eliminate the need to buy from multiple locations or go online. Customers can skip buying huge amounts of each supplement and only buy as much as they are interested in.
Second, the station is attended by a Bulktender who converses with customers and use their expertise to tailor a blend for each person’s goals. The Bulktender keeps up to date with trends in supplements and is active in the health/fitness community. The Bulktender is a friendly guide for the newbies and a trusted buddy for the experienced. We also provide an official Bulk Bar Mixology Guide with educational material on the supplements’ benefits, recommended blends for different fitness goals, including a few from fitness celebrities like professional bodybuilders, athletes, and MMA fighters.
Finally, the Bulk Bar offer its own reusable, biodegradable plastic growler to carry the custom blend. This growler cuts out the potentially dozens of containers the average user might acquire if he was to purchase each supplement. Additionally, to incentivize customers to reuse their containers, we would offer a 10% discount each time the user fills their growler. We imagine that if the Bulk Bar and its growler become widespread, the amount of plastic wasted in the supplement industry would be drastically reduced.
Prototyping
We went to my gym to test our service. As Bulktenders, we chatted with gymgoers about their gym goals, what mix could work for them, made a blend, and poured it into a sample growler. In the end, we gained important insights from thirteen testers. Overall, the service idea was very well received and our testers were enthusiastic about its potential. Several people felt that they were too lacking in knowledge to create their own blend but they would like the Bulktender’s guidance. People appreciated the growler as a way to cut down on empty tubs and bags. We were frequently asked if the blends could be vegan.
Insights
The interest in vegan options was a surprise and we realized that vegan bodybuilders could be our service’s entry point into the supplement space.
If we can capture the interest of vegan bodybuilders, we can expand to omnivores, curious newbies, experienced supplement users,and anyone else who is interested in helping the environment, customizing their supplements, and becoming part of educational fitness community.
We imagine that the Bulk Bar will spread by word by word-of-mouth with a lot of social media traction for the Bar, the Bulktender, and the custom mix. Beyond that, the Growler is a walking advertisement for the Bulk Bar that will spark curiosity as it travels from home to the gym, the office, the grocery store, etc.
