Today we’d like to introduce you to Phillip Meece.
Hi Phillip, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story begins with the Army. I was a combat medic and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011. My experiences there convinced me that we needed a healthier, functional food for the battlefield – for traveling, exploration, or wherever people find themselves in need of convenient food – exploring the world shouldn’t mean sacrificing their health. I started thinking about what I wish I had in Afghanistan while eating MREs and feeling kind of sick. The thing I kept coming back to was a “Meat MRE” – a meal that requires no preparation and was made of meat, that you could live off of. In order words, it wouldn’t just provide the protein your body needed, but also the energy. I was distressed to find out that often jerky spoils in the heat, as the jerky I ordered online and sent to Afghanistan did the same. Modern jerky is actually fairly moist so as to not hurt our teeth, and this decreases its shelf-stability.
When I got back to the US and I was trying to get my health back on track, I found the keto lifestyle. I found that a lot of the weight gain, lethargy, and anxiety I was experiencing was well-mitigated by a low carb diet – I just felt better! This got me thinking about my “Meat MRE” idea. I looked back through history to see if I could find examples of traditional methods of preservation that didn’t include harsh chemicals, which I believe contributed to me not feeling my best. That’s when I found pemmican – a Native American food that they have been using since the dawn of time to travel and relocate their communities when the presence of game was not always guaranteed. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if I could make shelf-stable pemmican to send to soldiers in the battlefield as well as keep myself on the keto/low carb diet that I found made me feel my best.
The next problem I had after coming up with the idea is that I didn’t know if anybody else would want something like this, so I decided to launch a Kickstarter in 2019 to see if there were other like-minded individuals who were interested in the concept. To my delight and surprise, there were hundreds of other people who had been asking for exactly this kind of product to exist! They enthusiastically supported me and helped me raise $84,000 on Kickstarter. Since then, as a company, we’ve been working tirelessly through the pandemic to not only weather the storm of the supply chain disruptions, but also to develop this product that has the potential to be lifesaving nutrition anywhere and everywhere.
We’ve had customers use The Carnivore Bar to travel, to get through military training, to survive hospital visits eating low carb, and who knows what the future holds for us. We’re excited to continue developing as a company to help people go where they want to go without compromising their health.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road. Our biggest obstacles have been the pandemic and our own inexperience. Running a company is hard, running a company during a pandemic is harder, and running a meat company during a pandemic is hardest. But our mantra is growth focused, people first, and earnest striving. Each and every day we strive to do our best and we’re honest with our customers, and they appreciate how hard we try to do our best to make this new and unique food available to a community that truly needs it.
As you know, we’re big fans of Carnivore Bar. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We offer a zero carb, high fat travel food. It’s the first commercially made pemmican product that is shelf-stable. We are proud to be a community-driven company that wholly exists due to the support of our fans – they have an outsized voice in who we are and what we will become, and this is what I’m proudest of.
What are your plans for the future?
We’d love to provide shelf-stable meals for the military, as well as disaster relief and humanitarian aid. We feel like there’s a lack of high quality protein and an overreliance on empty calories through carbohydrates. We would like to fill the niche of providing nutrient dense survival food to the people that need it.
Contact Info:
- Email: courtney@carnivorebar.com
- Website: www.carnivorebar.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/thecarnivorebar
- Facebook: facebook.com/thecarnivorebar
