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Haverhill-born brothers Jake and Brent Nicolosi recently founded their own home-made protein bar company.
The business, they call Really Real Co., was founded on the belief they can create protein bars without, as they say, “all the junk.” The brothers told WHAV most companies make protein bars with cheap, unhealthy ingredients.
The Nicolosis are lifelong athletes and former college wrestlers. They came up through the Haverhill High School athletics system, having wrestled under Coach Timothy Lawlor. Brent said he still spends time with Lawlor and the Haverhill team, He explained he hopes to inspire the next generation of student athletes to chase their dreams.
“Honestly, I want to get to a point where I can inspire people, inspire kids, to go really chase their dreams and passions,” Brent said. “I’m not even going back to school. I just finished my sophomore year, because I’m just so passionate about this. So, I’m technically dropping out. In a couple years, I want to inspire kids, like that if they have a crazy passion, to just go chase something,” he said.
Brent said the next step for Really Real Co. is to move production from home to a factory. He said the brothers are still handmaking every bar, trying to make as many sales as they can to be able to afford a manufacturing site. He said Really Real is talking to a manufacturer in Colorado as a potential site for production. He added, the reason for outsourcing production is the Colorado-based company allows a lower minimum order quantity, meaning Really Real could economically begin by producing smaller amounts of product.
The brothers hired a food scientist about two months ago who is evaluating how they can improve the quality of the bars, get the product ready for shelf life and “scale it for manufacturing.” Really Real looks to begin manufacturing sometime in December or January.
Really Real has also hired a branding agency to create package designs and a new logo.