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Stakool Inc. (STKO-OTCBB) |
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December 23, 2011 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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CURRENT ISSUE | COVER ARCHIVES | INDEX | CONTACT | FINANCIALS | SERVICES | HOME PAGE |
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With their Healthy Snack Bar Natural plus Energy™ Already on the Market, Stakool Inc. and its Subsidiary Anthus Life are Focused on Becoming an Umbrella Company in the Business of Incubating Multiple Brands in the Natural and Organic, and Health and Wellness Space – a Huge Market Opportunity |
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Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFOinterviews.com, Published – December 23, 2011
Mr. Hellwig: I have twenty-plus years of experience in the world of strategic planning, business development, competitive intelligence, and mergers and acquisitions. The last ten years has been spent with development-stage companies and emerging technologies mostly in the “all-natural” as well as the “green” market space, both on the public sector as well as the private sector. In addition, 1 have 12+ years of experience on the consultancy side in which I have assisted market leaders and stakeholders, many of which are Fortune 100/500 in understanding their respective markets and determining their best corporate development courses of action to effectively develop, acquire and build new products/service and to effectively manage their existing products/services to maximize their chances of success in highly competitive markets.
Mr. Hellwig: Mostly because the natural and organic food market has tremendous growth potential. It is currently approximately an $81 billion market; and, it is seeing double digit growth. With retail being in such a state of flux right now, it is a very optimistic thing to see the segment in which we operate experiencing strong and higher than normal growth.
Mr. Hellwig: Stakool is the public entity. Anthus Life recently acquired Stakool, Inc., and is in the process of merging the two entities. This has been an on-going process which began in July and we finally completed that merger just within the last couple of weeks. Anthus Life will continued to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stakool, Inc. In the future, Anthus will introduce many more products, and it will be a pleasure to incubate these products and technologies and bring them to fruition.
Mr. Hellwig: You have to view Anthus Life as what I call an umbrella company. It is in the business of incubating and bringing to market multiple brands in the health and wellness as well as the natural and organic foods market. Health and wellness allows us to operate outside of natural and organic foods. We are considering launching a number of different products to include lotions, creams and rubs for skin, muscle and joint pain issues and concerns as well as some medical device technologies to assist in managing to common and frustrating aliments, within the next several years. And, within the natural and organic foods market, we will launch additional products as well within the next few months. The only product line within the Anthus Life at the present time, is a brand by the name of Natural plus Energy™, which is a healthy snack bar. While it is an “energy bar”, we like to consider it a high health snack bar – a healthy snack comprised of only nominal ingredients - anywhere from a minimum of four all-natural ingredients to a maximum of nine all-natural ingredients. More specifically, though, Anthus Life will incubate a number of brands within the years to come. Within the next year, we would like to launch an additional two to four, and there after introduce maybe three to five new products per year, and incubate those into a number of different retail ready brands. Interestingly if you look at what has been going in the food market, and it will continue to be pervasive in the natural and organic market, it’s very similar to what occurred in the pharmaceutical industry – all the large players’ R&D budgets are now becoming their M&A budgets. If we do our jobs right by successfully incubating retail brands, the larger players will benefit by acquiring already successful brands and having the capability to mainstream them further.
Mr. Hellwig: It is an interesting question. If you look at what our intent is as a company, the ultimate objective for Anthus is to operate in three different ways. One is to own our own formulations and technologies; two, private label products and bring them to market as an Anthus Life brand; and three, once our channels of distribution have been dialed-in appropriately, we envision ourselves becoming a “go-to company” for brands that are interested in rapidly getting to market by leveraging the infrastructure we have worked to build. Parlaying that into your question, it’s a combination of what products we see fit, that are market-ready and that have some consumer demand associated with them, and more importantly products and technologies that fit with our strategic vision and fit with the objectives of our reps, agents, distribution channels and customers. We certainly don’t want to reinvent the wheel every time we bring another product to market – it’s much easier and more profitable to incorporate a new product or technology that is synergistic with our existing capabilities of bring something new to market. For instance, the next product that we will bring to market, will piggy back off of what we have begun to build around the Natural Plus Energy product. The healthy snack market is a very good market to operate in as there is so much demand for products that are good for you but still capable of meeting the “on-the-go need”. In fact, the next product will probably even augment the growth of the Natural Plus Energy product line. Really though, it is a combination of product development around products that are ready to go to market and have a significant amount of demand associated with them; and, two, what products and technologies we have at-the-ready through our internal resources and external partners.
Mr. Hellwig: There is a demand for all-natural products in the marketplace. There are a number of products out there that are positioned as “all-natural”, but they do have lots of fillers and unnecessary ingredient present in their products. In a colloquial way, I like to put it as their ingredient labels three inches too wide and one and a half inches too high, with a number of ingredients that the vast majority of people cannot pronounce, yet they are still positioned as all-natural. The truly all-natural environment of gluten-free, wheat-free, dairy-free, cholesterol free, trans fat free, etc. is where the market has demand. While the market seems populated, more and more consumers are looking for better healthy snack alternatives – we provide that. In addition, not all of the products out there are gluten free, wheat free and dairy free, and a greater number of aliments are now linked to gluten, wheat and dairy intolerances. Almost everywhere you look and in every publication, there is a great push and trending toward gluten-free, wheat-free and dairy-free product purchases.
CEOCFO: How does Stakool and Anthus Life get people to pay attention once you have the products and have the distribution set up? Mr. Hellwig: We have brought onboard Shannon Miller, who is a seven-time Olympic medalist to be the official endorsement and spokesperson for Natural Plus Energy. This relationship will expand for Shannon Miller to endorse other products brought to market by Anthus Life. That is step-one to starting to develop a following, social awareness and brand awareness. The next step is to get a significant amount of PR behind the product and future products. This is definitely the focus for the next six months. This will be a combination of advertising, general awareness through publication, more significant social awareness hence developing brand equity as well as greater visibility in the natural and organic market space. We may even bring onboard additional endorsements and spokespeople dependent upon the requirements of future product introductions. Relative to Shannon Miller though, we consider ourselves lucky though – I don’t know of a single bar that has an endorsement like this, and we are also entering 2012 which is an Olympic year, and Shannon Miller was a summer Olympic athlete. There are a number of things that could be done with that.
Mr. Hellwig: There are a number of products and technologies that we have up our sleeves around aliments such as diabetes and general health. I can’t get into the specifics, but, we have a couple of medical devices that have some revolutionary functionality associate with them, then allow somewhat difficult or cumbersome tasks to be performed more effectively and in less invasive manners. In addition, there are a number other products such as lotions, creams and rubs that we have for the management and treatment of a many common but frustrating skin, muscle and joint issues, concerns and pains. All of these products would obviously also be all-natural formulations.
Mr. Hellwig: No different than the question you asked in regards to “why another natural snack.” The demand is there, and people are naturally gravitating toward naturally formulated products. There are a number of pharmaceutical grade products of course, but, historically all-natural formulations have not been considered to have the same efficacy. However, in today’s world, there are all-natural formulation that can perform as well if not better than pharmaceutical grade or artificial concocted products. And, with consumers’ behaviors changing, and with their interest lying in seeking and identifying all-natural solutions that truly work, a larger opportunity exposes itself – there really aren’t that many powerful natural and organic products that really work.
Mr. Hellwig: One of the major drivers is that within the last two years we have seen an abundance products come to market that are dairy-free, wheat-free, and especially gluten-free. Everything that you see nowadays seems to have a gluten-free association. Even when you go into a local convenience store now, right smack in front there is an end cap that even says all-natural and gluten-free products, and they are just now emerging in the marketplace. This field of natural and organic products is growing, and the reason why is because the consumer is realizing that there are many health issues and concerns that can be better-managed through elimination and reduction of certain ingredients and compounds in our daily dietary regimen. The same consumer behavior crosses-over to natural and organic remedies without a doubt. In today’s day and age, people seek natural alternatives, and they are realizing that many taste better (in the food market), and many natural alternative work better (in the remedies market). It’s very interesting, but just because it’s natural, doesn’t mean that it is inferior in performance, taste and most importantly these type of products and remedies no longer come at a premium price.
Mr. Hellwig: Right now of course we are still a development stage company. While the revenue is still somewhat nominal, the growth opportunities are tremendous. More importantly, since we already have a number of products, formulations and technologies in the hopper so to speak, we have already invested a significant amount into product development. Therefore, we really need to harness what we have, find the right opportunities that maximize exposure, brand equity, awareness and revenue, and we can capitalize significantly. We are definitely well-positioned to launch many new products that will drive revenue significantly. It has always been the intention to be a public entity, and in that regard, we have the capability to capitalize the appropriate activities that will facilitate a very healthy revenue stream within the near and long term.
Mr. Hellwig: Stakool and Anthus Life are definitely on the move and we have a number of neat technologies coming to market. That is something that everyone should observe. There are so many development-stage companies that do not necessarily have a clear direction or strategy, and in many cases are fly-by-night operations - we aren’t! The intention is to strive and to be an emerging market leader in the natural & organic, and health & wellness markets. We have some significant technologies that we intend to be game-changers. We look forward to having brands that have some real brand equity out there and can make a difference.
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You have to view Anthus Life as what I call an umbrella company. It is in the business of incubating and bringing to market multiple brands in the health and wellness as well as the natural and organic foods market. Health and wellness allows us to operate outside of natural and organic foods. We are considering launching a number of different products to include lotions, creams and rubs for skin, muscle and joint pain issues and concerns as well as some medical device technologies to assist in managing to common and frustrating aliments, within the next several years. And, within the natural and organic foods market, we will launch additional products as well within the next few months. - Peter Hellwig |
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