When selling nutrition bars, choose products based on how you practice

I have been practicing and teaching nutrition before I started chiropractic school in 1974, and my initial reaction to nutrition was negative. I believed a person would get all the nutrients necessary from the food he or she consumed. Most of us have since learned that anything the government “experts” tell us is usually not true.

I have distributed various food supplements in my various offices since I started practicing nutrition (and chiropractic). There are many reasons to provide this service to our patients:

First, I sought to provide the highest- quality products to my patients. Although health food stores, drug stores, and supermarkets sell supplements, not all of these products provide high-quality ingredients or even the dosage reported on the label.

The second reason to distribute supplements is to have them readily available for patients so they don’t have to go elsewhere for these products. I suspected there would be higher compliance if patients walked out of the office with the recommended supplements rather than going to another store later.

The last reason to distribute supplements is for profit. There is usually a 100% markup on supplements, but many times our patients seek the best prices for the same products at discount stores or on the Internet. Therefore,  it may be necessary to offer a 10% to 15% discount to prevent them from shopping elsewhere.

In this age of HMOs limiting patient visits, learning nutrition, providing nutritional counseling, and distributing supplements can be a wonderful avenue of additional income for chiropractors. It is a cash business, so forget about Medicare, HMOs, and other insurance-company forms and bureaucratic red tape.

Nutrition Bars
You might ask what this has to do with the topic of this article—distributing nutrition-rich bars in your practice. Everything. Like supplements, I sought to distribute the highest-quality, best-tasting bars in my office.

Go to a large health food store, and you will be overwhelmed with the number of products available for sale. Your food-supplement distributors have no shortage of choices. I am always searching for better products. I find them at seminars, health food stores, and even my yoga studio.

How Do You Practice?
Choose products you want to distribute based on how you practice. If you promote high-protein/low-carbohydrate diets, then you should find bars that conform to that approach. If you suggest a balanced diet such as the Zone diet, you can choose products along that line.

I have my own personal bias in regard to nutrition bars. I look for bars with low glycemic index ingredients—nuts, seeds, and whole grains—that will help to balance the glucose levels when these bars are consumed between meals or as a meal replacement. Most of the bars I choose provide a 2:1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein, but I like other bars that are mostly natural, unprocessed carbs. I have some bars that contain nuts and seeds, but remember that peanuts are high on food-allergy lists.

The bars I choose have no processed sugars, especially no high-fructose corn syrup. Acceptable sugars, such as xylitol, fructose, brown rice syrup, or dehydrated cane syrup, should still be at least the fourth ingredient on the list rather than in the top three. Remember, too, that some companies will add two or three different sweeteners that may be lower on the ingredient list but are high in a cumulative score. That would be reflected by the number of grams of carbohydrates—the higher the carbs, the more sugar in the product.

Legumes, such as peanuts, cashews, and soybeans, have a low glycemic index and provide a fair amount of protein without too much fat. Again, these foods are high on food allergy lists.

As a golfer, I also sought a bar that was not coated with something that would melt if I carried it in my golf bag on a hot day. Plenty of great bars are coated, but because a counter has limited space, I select bars that I like and will use.

I suggest you start the same way. Find something you and your staff really like. I cannot overemphasize how important it is for your staff to really like these products. They are the ones who spend the most time with your patients and who can really do the selling up front. So include your staff when you sample products, and reject any product they won’t eat.

The next step is to create a nice display on your reception area front desk. Most of these bars come in boxes that are made to act as a display. Use large printing to display the price on the box, and include small flyers touting the bars as well.

If you stay in contact with your patients via newsletters, letters, or e-mail, now is the time to send out information about your new products.

Pricing Is Important
In my practice I always rounded out the price of all products, so change was not necessary. Even if we needed to make the price $2.50, we only needed to keep quarters for change (which we kept anyway for the street parking meters). Or patients would purchase two for $5—no more change. The profit margin you charge is up to you, but I used the retail price as a guide. For a few years, we purchased one brand that I soon found in local stores for a price close to our wholesale price. I quickly found another product because I had no intention of competing with the high-volume stores.

Many of the products available to us are “medical foods” rather than candy bars and will command prices of $2 to $3 each. You may be able to double the wholesale price, but not always. Medical foods are meal replacements that can be found in powder form or nutrition bar form. They contain balanced carbohydrates, protein, and supplements (vitamins, minerals, and herbs) and can be used to replace a meal at times. These bars usually do not have any undesirable sugars added. But in all fairness, none of these products would be palatable without some sweetener included.

Sell What You Like
Once you set up the display, the next step is to open the bars, cut them up into small squares, and arrange them on an attractive plate. Have your receptionists encourage patients to try the new bars. If your staff likes them, so will most of your patients. Watch their reactions—see who comes back for seconds or thirds. I found the bars disappearing at times and realized that the staff members were helping themselves—a small price to pay considering they sold far more than they ate.

Some of our patients came into the office hungry and bought one for an on-the-spot snack and then took one or two home for later. They are great snacks for children, too, and if children like them, their parents will buy them and want them by the box. We always offered a discount on the box price. It was easy for us, and the patients always appreciated the price break.

Knowing how much to stock will depend on the bar’s popularity. At one point, our source was back-ordered for more than a month and we never heard the end of that. Start with enough stock for the office and your own personal consumption, and after a short time you should be able to judge how much you need to keep on hand.

If you would like to learn more about nutrition in general, or these products specifically, I recommend taking postgraduate courses or weekend seminars in nutrition. Most of the food-supplement distributors sponsor inexpensive seminars throughout the year.

The bottom line: You’re not going to retire selling nutrition bars in your office, but if you have a sizable practice, it will provide a little extra cash income.

William J. Rice, DC, DACBN, LAc, FACCN,  practiced in Port Washington, NY, for almost 30 years, and recently moved to West Palm Beach, FL, where he started a practice using acupuncture, nutrition-lifestyle counseling, and chiropractic care. He can be reached via e-mail at drbill@writeme.com.