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Healthy, sustainable, and convenient organic products based on a thousand-year-old Icelandic tradition

Andrew Buerger is the founder of B’more Organic, an organic food and beverage company headquartered in Baltimore. The smoothies that make up B’more Organic’s flagship product line are based on an Icelandic style yogurt called skyr, which—in contrast with conventional dairy products—has more protein, less sugar, and no fat. The substance’s unique bacteria culture makes it suitable for people sensitive to lactose. Andrew came up with the idea for the company after trying skyr during a fundraising climbing expedition in Iceland. As a certified B Corporation, B’more Organic has pledged to meet strict social and environmental standards of sustainability, accountability, and transparency. B’more Organic also supports MS and breast cancer research by donating 1% of its sales to Jodi’s Climb for Hope.

What are your thoughts about the local and organic food movements here in Baltimore? Why did you choose to base your company here?

ANDREW BUERGER: I’m really proud and excited just to watch the food movement grow in Baltimore. When we started, I met some really special people: Michele from Michele’s Granola, Pete from Salazon Chocolate—people that were well established, had a great brand, and super nice people. I said, “You know, I think Baltimore has an opportunity here. We’re trying to get good jobs, we’re trying to get good companies.” And that was also happening in the local food movement. People wanted to buy local. Whole Foods was real excited to have us because we were a local company. They were excited to have Michele’s Granola because she was a local company. I think local communities are supporting this movement, which is helpful.

But, on the other hand, I think we’re seeing a lot of innovation coming out of here. We’re not just succeeding because we’re local, but we have some really smart people. Tessemae’s is making a great product that happens to be local. Salazon Chocolate is a great product, but he’s in all the Whole Foods because he created the first salted chocolate. You’re seeing a lot of entrepreneurs that are starting to emerge here.

There are a number of reasons for it: in no small part because of the convention, the Natural Products Show. We wouldn’t be where we are today—there was no plane flight, there was no hotel, there were no travel costs, and so it’s a very low barrier to entry to attend this show, and that’s where we picked up a lot of business. So, it’s great for food entrepreneurs to go as their launching pad. So, that’s been a big help as well.

That’s where we met Wegmans for the first time. They came by our booth. Our first year, we scraped together the entrance fee, and my wife was working and was able to land that major account. Not only that—they picked up a distributor who came along with that deal. Now, we went from “How do we get our product to market?” to the largest distributor of organic food in the whole country is now carrying our products in their trucks. Those were two major wins. That’s just in the first year alone. If you go back every year, we have much smaller wins but wins nonetheless to help us grow our business.

Why do you think the product’s been able to achieve such monumental success?

We created the first high-protein drink with no added sugar. Before we came along, if you wanted protein, drinks especially, you had some other products out there that were just full of sugar. The list of ingredients was incredibly long. You couldn’t pronounce half the things. We have five ingredients, which is very simple. We make the yogurt from organic milk, and we add fruit and organic stevia. It’s very, very simple, and people love that. Moms are so tired of going to get something healthy at the store but meanwhile it’s loaded with sugar, it’s loaded with preservatives. We created the first protein smoothie that’s a grab-and-go item that’s all organic and with no added sugar.

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