Bill Logue’s bottled magic
I got a call last month from Wendy Ingraham: "Bill Logue is back."
I've been a triathlete since before "triathlete" was a word, let alone a word anyone recognized. I've been in the triathlon business not quite as long: 24 years. In that span of time, I've known some real characters. The biggest characters tended, in my experience, to be big men, with big personalities.
One of my favorites was Bill Smith, now passed away, father of Spencer Smith. Now that was a man!
Another is Bill Logue, 6'3", football physique, now in his late 60s. He reminds me of Wallace Beery, and if you're a vintage film buff maybe you can see the resemblence. If you know Bill and you hear the voice and intersect with his personality, you see the resemblence even more.
Bill's not quite as big as he used to be, as the photo adjacent (with wife Sheri) demonstrates, versus the photo just below of Bill and Sheri a decade and a half ago, in Kona, during PR*Bar's heyday. Bill has slimmed down, and healthwise the interim years have treated him well—rather, he's treated himself well.
Bill Logue is the founder of PR*Bar. If you're a noob, I'll need to take you back a bit. Recall the Zone Diet. When I first heard about it—about 20 years ago—I recall thinking that a diet of 40 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent fat, and 30 percent protein, was crazy. But it's stood the test of time and, while The Zone still has its nay sayers (whose complaints are often about things that the Zone defenders don't advocate), it has generated some impressive test results as a weight loss and maintenance lifestyle.
Barry Sears is the inventor and popularizer of The Zone. Bill Logue is married to Sheri Sears, sister to Barry, and pictured here. Bill Logue is not a nutritionist, nor a chemist, nor an athlete. Bill's bailiwick: knowing a bankable narrative when he hears it.
As has been the case with SRAM, Giro, and Oakley, a lot of companies that got big started small, and were helped, or even launched, by triathlon. So with Bill Logue's bar built on the 40:30:30 principal: PR*Bar.
Bill decided to get into the nutritional bar business in 1992, when the field was dominated by Powerbar and upstart Clif Bar (as it largely still is). This was before the internet craze, and PR*Bar's direct sales were handled by a phone bank that looked like a Jerry Lewis telethon. Quite a few of today's triathlon entrepreneurs—like top Kuota salesman Paul Thomas, and Sports Multiplied founder Richard Verney (exclusive U.S. Importer for 2XU, Bont Cycling, and Prologo)—got their starts on PR*Bar's phone banks. Successful nutritional shake and bar maker Premier Nutrition was founded by Chris Geist, Lance Rankin, and Kerry Law, all PR*Bar alumni.
Bill and Sheri Logue became Ironman licensees, and sold Ironman nutritional bars through retail outlets, alongside their PR*Bar direct sale program. PR Nutrition shot to #3 on the bar charts, says Logue, with sales only behind Powerbar and Clif Bar.
The Logues sold out to TwinLab in 1998, after only a six-year run. Bill disappeared from the triathlon scene. TwinLab filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in 2003, and was sold a year later. The PR*Bar name passed through multiple owners until Logue bought it earlier this year, from health care company Gold Shield, at a fraction for the price for which he sold it.
Now Bill Logue's back, making PR*Bar again, but the game has changed. No longer do customers who buy consumer direct do so predominantly over the telephone. Now it's internet sales. Logue has had to adapt to new industrial paradigms.
But he is indefatigable, as his 1990s team will attest. I get along with Bill Logue because he's one of those rare compatriots who does not get discouraged when he hears No. He gets determined. And the more he hears it the more determined he gets.
"We expect to make this business return to what it used to be," he says. "We started in triathlon. Most triathletes know we have a long term relationship athletes like with Mark Allen and Wendy Ingraham."
This is where Logue might be wrong. The demographic has changed. Not very many triathletes today were triathletes during PR*Bar's heyday.
Still, it's true that athletes who're paying attention to the glycemic index of the foods they eat, and who feel unsatisfied with a diet of typical energy bars or gels over a long training day, may gravitate to a low-glycemic, non-carb-exclusive bar that became so popular during what many consider triathlon's swashbuckling era, when Mark Allen, Jurgen Zack, Thomas Hellriegel, Greg Welch and Luc Van Lierde turned in their heroic performances.
Logue thinks this is the proper time for his and his bar's return. "People today still eat, or are back to eating, a high carb diet," he says. "We did well with triathletes because the ratio in our bar was terrific to train and to race on. You're not hungry, you access your own body fat, and our bars just taste better."
"I finally decided take another stab at it," says Logue. "I always wanted to buy PR*Bar back, I never wanted to get out of the business to begin with. I saw an opportunity. I always wanted to make the best tasting bar in the business."
Bill Logue rarely equivocates. "Our new 4 flavors [Chocolate Peanut, Double Chocolate, Yogurt Berry, and Iced Brownie] are, I believe, the four best tasting bars in this country."
Can Logue bottle—or, rather, wrapper—magic a second time?
