Skratch Labs Opens New Cafe To Re-Extend Identity and Ethos

Sports nutrition company Skratch Labs opened a new cafe in its hometown of Boulder, Colorado last month with the aim of extending its brand identity beyond the CPG industry.

While Skratch has been solely focused on growing its packaged drink mixes, snacks and bars business since it launched the latter in 2017, CEO and co-founder Ian MacGregor explained that the cafe opening marks a return to the brand’s roots.

“The idea of having a cafe for us has been part of our vision,” said MacGregor. “It’s a place where people can congregate, where they can collaborate, where they can dream and be creative, and be bound by the idea of food that was real.”

Founded in 2011 by McGregor, artist Aaron Foster and former Tour de France coach and cookbook author Dr. Allen Lim, Skratch Labs started as a cookbook intended to help people “connect the dots with real food and their athletic endeavors,” MacGregor said. In 2012, the brand invested its entire annual marketing budget into a sampling program with a food truck that it would drive to athletic events and competitions to cook and serve ready-made meals alongside its endurance-recovery beverage mixes.

MacGregor joked that although the truck really only made enough to roll over and fund its venture to the next event, the team continued to operate it for over six years. Since the food truck business came to a close in 2018 the team has been working on plans to bring its original ethos back into the business. That vision is now finally coming to life.

The new Skratch Cafe will feature coffee, beverages, a complimentary “hydration station” with its hydration mix on tap and a retail section stocked with Skratch CPG products. The food menu will “expand upon the idea” of the brand’s portfolio with customizable rice bowls and rice cakes, soups spanning from lemongrass chicken bone broth to mushroom congee and a range of snacks, sides and add-ons, said Skratch Labs marketing director Tina Edwards. Menu items range between $10 to $13.

Scratch Lab’s CPG portfolio currently includes over 20 food and beverage SKUs including hydration powder sticks, energy chews, crispy rice bars and high-carb sports drinks. The brand sells products at retailers across the country including Target, REI as well as independent gyms, bike shops and outdoor sporting goods outlets. It also has a significant international presence, namely the U.K. and Australia, but sees the majority of its sales via its e-commerce platform.

Keto coffee brand Bulletproof also previously attempted to merge a cafe-style operation with its CPG brand, opening a location in Santa Monica in 2015 that offered a variety of protein bowls, salads, coffee and supplements; however, the cafe closed its doors late last year. Both MacGregor and Edwards emphasized that the cafe opening does not mark Skratch’s move away from CPG. Instead, the team views it as a physical extension of the brand, bringing its values into a tangible space.

“We are trying to figure out the best way to serve [our customers],” said MacGregor. “This is not the only way and we make cookbooks with recipes that can quite literally replace the products that we sell, but those things are not competing with each other. They’re options and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to do – give customers options so they can pick and choose what works best for them.”

The team did have to delay commercializing some larger CPG-related projects while they worked to get the cafe up and running, but aside from that, MacGregor said the business carried on as usual, even as the team navigated a range of new challenges stemming from the foodservice business.

The completely self-funded, nearly 12-year-old company has functioned with a bootstrapped mentality since its inception, with this project being no different. The cafe was built solely with the company’s retained earnings and didn’t require any external capital, MacGegor explained. However, in the wake of the Boulder County forest fire last year, permitting on commercial projects virtually halted. That unforeseen event delayed the cafe’s construction and subsequent opening by about nine months.

“That was an enormous cost both in terms of the direct costs, and even larger, the opportunity cost,” said MacGregor. “We missed out on an entire year of exposure, support, interaction – all the reasons why we’re doing this cafe. That’s been a hard pill to swallow. But [this experience], was the reality of any entrepreneurial journey.”

With its doors now open, Skratch Cafe aims to serve endurance-oriented Boulder locals and tourists. He hopes it becomes a communal place where sports and nutrition-oriented individuals, including Skratch’s own team, can come together, collaborate and learn from each other.

“The thing that has really resonated for me [with this] physical manifestation of Skratch hospitality is that it doesn’t have to be a set-it-and-forget-it situation,” said MacGregor. “In the same way that any CPG business is going to be constantly iterating… we’ve really tried to bring that type of mentality and I think it’s been refreshing particularly for the line cooks, dishwashers and baristas who are not necessarily used to that type of an open-minded, continuous learning environment.”