Solve Your Snack Game: RacePak

Snacks on display in a retail area of one of Racepak's many clients, Movement Climbing & Fitness

Following another exhausting but fulfilling session at the climbing gym after work,  I spy my favorite protein bar. I am delightfully surprised to find the gym carrying this brand since I can’t even find them at the grocery store most of the time. 

Even small purchases like this can lead to consistent supplemental income at your gym, in addition to memberships and day passes. But how do you know how much to order and how much will sell, especially given all those minimum quantity orders most companies mandate? 

RacePak to the rescue. Who are they? The company that is sure to help your gym's retail snack business thrive, no matter the size of your gym or retail space. 

What is RacePak?

Tyler Noyers (he/him), Founder, RacePak: RacePak is an athletic food distributor that supplies climbing gyms across the country with all of their healthy snacks/fuel for their climbers.

Whether you are a larger chain or a single location, we reduce the hassle of managing multiple brands with a simple, easy platform that stores all of your information and previous orders.

We don't have any order minimums, so you can simply order a single box of one flavor to see if it is a good fit for your climbers. 

Why would a climbing gym want to use RacePak?

Tyler: We understand that whether you are operating a single location or a chain of climbing facilities, there are a lot of demands on you or your team's time. Our goal is to make your snack life easier and reduce the hassle.

RacePak allows you to simplify your snack ordering needs from one easy location. No more contacting 5-10 different vendors, managing delivery times, multiple bill payments, or trying to figure out ideal minimum orders by brand. Also, if you have staff turnover or a change of role internally, it is no problem. Your ordering history, sorted by product, is all available to you via your account for whoever takes on the role. 

Why wouldn't a gym just order directly from a brand?

Tyler: You certainly can. We do our best to ensure that your price is the same as going direct to any brand we work with and deliver the same high-quality customer service.

Our difference; we have been able to meaningfully reduce shipping/delivery times compared to going direct with multiple brands to ensure you aren't ever waiting for your product. To repeat it from earlier for the folks in the back, RacePak doesn’t have any minimum order quantities. You can mix and match flavors, brands, etc. to trial potential new products to your lineup with minimal inventory risk.

What sort of products does RacePak offer?

Tyler: We offer a variety of healthy snacks across bars, jerky, nuts, etc. you name it! While we can't always guarantee that we can carry every product possible, we are always committed to partnering with our customers to see what products or flavors they would like to see us carry going forward. 

If there is enough demand, we can quickly add any product to our lineup.

What types of climbing gyms do you work with? 

Tyler: We are grateful to be able to work with any size of climbing gym, from chains like Movement to single locations across the US. We often hear that a location might think they'll be "too small" to offer a retail option. We respectfully disagree and we have the customers to prove it! 

Why did you start RacePak?

Tyler: I'm sure many of the entrepreneurs in your audience can relate, but the business you start is not necessarily the one you end up with!

RacePak's origin was rooted in wanting to provide the best healthy snacks in a wine crate-style box at the end of a race for athletes, hence the name RacePak.

However, like any good small business, we pivoted several times until we recognized a pain point at our local climbing gym (Brooklyn Boulders Somerville). An overly-stretched manager was trying to juggle several roles due to some turnover of fellow staff. Included in those roles was running the food and beverage operations. She had seen our RacePak gift boxes that we had provided for one of their climbing competitions and simply asked if she could order those same snacks directly from us to streamline and simplify her retail snack ordering. After a couple of months of working with BKB, we realized this was likely an issue many gyms deal with, small or large.

Any entertaining or memorable early founding stories?

Tyler: These are some of my favorite moments to share. Mostly because they highlight that we assuredly didn't have it all figured out from day one and that is okay! You simply break down each challenge into small pieces and then figure out the next one.

When we first transitioned into becoming a distributor from the direct-to-consumer business in 2015, we didn't quite realize that we would have to be ordering in massively different quantities to qualify as a distributor (think pallets of snacks versus boxes of snacks!).

I'll never forget it was a snowy Boston day, and down the street rumbles this 18-wheeler to our residential street. The truck driver was decidedly less than thrilled that we weren't exactly a business address and proceeded to drop off multiple pallets during a snow/sleet storm right on the sidewalk. Like many early-stage entrepreneurs, we were operating out of residence and had converted the basement to a mini fulfillment "warehouse."

Like squirrels ferreting away nuts for winter, we frantically broke down the pallets and attempted to get the inventory inside! It was controlled chaos at its finest.

I'm fairly certain that most of our neighbors were convinced we were running some sort of nefarious Breaking Bad-esque operation. From that challenging beginning, we created the foundation for a successful business.

How can a gym get started with RacePak? 

Tyler: Getting started is super simple. Simply sign up here or feel free to email me directly at Tyler@race-pak.com. I'll do my very best to get back to you immediately and help in any way I can!

About the Author

Tyler Noyes is a Founder of RacePak, a snack food distributor that focuses on providing fitness facilities with healthy snacks and training fuel for customers through a wholesale, B2B portal. RacePak helps gym owners diversify their revenue streams and help their customers achieve their fitness goals. With a background in corporate strategy and a passion for health and fitness, Tyler jumped into the entrepreneurial world by founding RacePak. He also founded Kalahari Biltong, a South African style of air-dried meat snacks, before it was acquired by Stryve Foods in 2020. When not building “snack empires” Tyler spends time competing in epic endurance races, exploring national parks, getting lost in sci-fi novels, and hanging out with his Aussiedoodle Maverick. 

This is a sponsored blog from RacePak.