Dana Wendt has created a new line of dairy-based snack bars, with the help of UW–Madison’s Center for Dairy Research.
Protein bars are nothing new, but a dairy-based protein snack bar geared toward young women to promote a healthy self-image and healthy eating is hitting the marketplace. Dana Wendt, a mom and University of Wisconsin alum, stumbled onto the idea of creating a dairy based protein bar targeted at young women. When she realized the protein bar she was consuming was sending her daughter a message about weight management she reached out to the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research to help her develop a bar that would provide girls all the nutrition they need in a snack and a message of empowerment. The result: Jouzge Bars.
“That was really the inception,” Jouzge Bars founder Dana Wendt said. “We also found most protein products were targeting females and they weren’t healthy, they always came with a diet message. And we did not want that for our daughter.”
So a few years ago, Dana contacted UW-Madison’s Center for Dairy Research about creating a dairy-based protein snack bar for young women.
“I was excited for a couple of reasons,” Burrington said. “One, because Dana was targeting young women. And then, our group, all of us are women as well, so we were really excited about developing a product by women for young women.”
And the bars are becoming quite popular with the intended audience!
“My friends love them! I’ve never had a friend that hasn’t liked them,” Oregon High School junior Hadley Wendt said. “The guys like them a lot more than I thought they were going to too considering their targeted towards teenage girls.”
The bar’s name, Jouzge, was the phrase Wendt’s father used as a self-affirmation each day before he headed to work at his B2B dairy company.
“My Dad had to make a lot of sales calls as a part of his job, which required a lot of confidence,” said Wendt. “Each day, after he was finished getting ready he would flip his hair back, look himself in the mirror and say, ‘You’ve got so much Jouzge.’”
Made with easy to absorb dairy proteins, the bars pair a positive message with a clean ingredient label and a great flavor profile!
“The purpose of Jouzge is to build strong and confident girls from the inside out,” Dana Wendt said. “Because it comes with that part of making sure girls do have a great snack for when they are on the go.”
Jouzge Bars come in chocolate mint, chocolate peanut butter, and chocolate chip cookie dough flavors and were developed with the help of Susan Larson and KJ Burrington at the Center for Dairy Research, and taste-tested on the UW-Madison Campus.
