Manuel Neuer has been paying attention to healthy eating for a long time due to serious injuries. Now the soccer professional wants to turn it into a business. He also brings two Yfood managers into his startup.
Manuel Neuer has a new project as an entrepreneur: he wants to stir up the snack market with healthy organic bars. Getty Images/S Mellar
It is well known that professional athletes like to become entrepreneurs towards the end of their active career. The plans for the “Baller League” only became public last week. The new football creator league is scheduled to start this year and will inspire, among other things, with streaming stars and an innovative concept. Planned start: later this year. With Mats Hummels, an active football professional appears as a co-founder.
Now, in Manuel Neuer, another professional and former team-mate at Bayern Munich and the national team is following suit. The product, however, could not be more different. Instead of entertainment, Neuer relies on nutrition – and according to initial information, it should meet exactly the demands that the multiple world goalkeeper has been making of himself for several years.
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The bar recipe is based on Neuer’s gluten-free, low-sugar diet
Neuer had the original idea five years ago. Since a longer injury break before the 2018 World Cup, the goalkeeper has been dealing intensively with his diet. At that time it was found that some foods would have a negative effect on his recovery and performance. Since then he has avoided lactose and added sugar, eats gluten-free and hardly eats meat, it is said.
These rules are now to be transferred to the Health Yeah bars. They are certified organic, vegan, gluten- and lactose-free, and do not contain added sugar or soy. Manuel Neuer himself will act as chairman of the supervisory board, his longtime friend Jan Driessen, former youth player at Schalke 04, assumes the role of CEO.
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Also on board are two experienced food entrepreneurs, Anton Reich and Felix Hellenberg. Reich served as Yfood’s Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Financial Officer, while Hellenberg served as Chief Operations Officer.
This means that the duo is also indirectly in competition with the former employer. Yfood has grown up with drinking meals. And the bottles are still by far the company’s strongest products, in which the food company Nestlé had a stake of almost 50 percent at the beginning of the year. But the product range is constantly being expanded; the portfolio also includes vegan bars.
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Market for bars and snacks is booming
Products related to dietary supplements, healthy snacks such as bars and meal replacements have experienced a real boom in recent years. In addition to Yfood, the Goodlife Company with brands such as Hej and Naturally Pam, the influencer Pamela Reif, The Nu Company, the startups Koro, Hafervoll and Foodlose as well as The Quality Group with brands like ESN and More Nutrition just a few examples. In the year 2022, snack manufacturers in Germany will be making bars between January and August more than 1.81 billion euros um, according to an analysis by the market research company IRI.
With Manuel Neuer, one of the most successful and well-known soccer goalkeepers in the world, Health Yeah naturally has a real marketing pound on its side. Almost 13 million people follow him on Instagram alone. The food startup should want to activate this range at the start. Exactly when that is is apparently not yet 100 percent certain. Autumn 2023, that much is certain, should start selling via the company’s own online shop and a few selected retail markets. Since Julia Schlotmann-Honsel, the operator of five Edeka branches in Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia, sits on the supervisory board, it should be clear who it is. In addition, the startup is about to start its first round of financing.
For Manuel Neuer, Health Yeah is not the first start-up. Last year, the national player teamed up with tennis player Angelique Kerber and the Marburg skin care company Paedi Protect to found Deutsche Cosmetics Works AG, or DKW for short. The professional athletes now use the company to sell care products and sun creams under the Newkee brand. The idea behind it is once again based on my own experience as a professional athlete: Both of them have to constantly train outside in the sun and stress their skin by showering several times a day. Shortly before, a skin disease from Manuel Neuer had also become known.
This article first appeared on OMR Daily.
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