OUR STORY

33Shake co-founders Erica & Warren, on a mission to save athletes everywhere from cr*p energy gel

As ultramarathon runners and triathletes, we love endurance sports. As a Brit and Italian both raised on awesome home cooking, we also love our food. So forcing down energy gels that tasted about as good as cold baby sick during training and racing was always tough for us.

After one mid-race retch too many, we’d had enough.

It wasn’t just the taste that was wrong with these gels, it was everything.They shot our energy levels up like a rocket, then dropped them off a cliff with no warning. They wreaked havoc on our stomachs and guts. Our mouths and teeth felt rotten after using them.

And we weren’t the only people experiencing these problems. Everyone was. So we decided to do something about it. But with no experience of the sports nutrition industry, we had no idea what we were doing.

Which was the best thing that could ever have happened.

Because it meant we didn’t do what the rest of the industry did. In fact, we didn’t do anything the rest of the industry did.

Where they had factories, we had our kitchen. Which made perfect sense - the best food we’d ever eaten had always come out of home kitchens. We’d never had a good meal from a factory.

Where they used the cheapest ingredients with shelf lives stretching into years, we used the best, whole and natural ingredients that went off in weeks. Which also made perfect sense - the best food we’d ever eaten had always been made this way. We’d never had a great meal made out of powder and goo.

And where the industry had multimillion dollar marketing budgets, global offices and distributors worldwide, we had the two of us, cupboards bursting with amazing ingredients and a pair of old laptops.

So instead of copying everyone else, we laid out what The Perfect Energy Gel should look like and set about working out how to make that instead.

These were the criteria:

1 Must taste awesome, all day and longer

2 Must deliver stable energy that lasts – no more peaks and troughs

3 Must keep our stomachs happy at all times, no matter how long the race

4 Must only be made with the best natural ingredients

After two years of hard work, our Chia Energy Gel was the result and it blew our socks off. Stable energy, great taste, completely natural ingredients and no stomach trouble all wrapped up in packaging that delivered unique benefits.

Boom and double BOOM!

We jacked in our jobs in 2012 and put everything into this company and we have been riding it like a rodeo bull ever since. The learning curve has been ridiculous, the fear crazy at times, but bigger than this is the joy of creating something we can totally believe in and which benefits athletes everywhere.

Just seeing our gels being used in races all over Europe is amazing. Every time we see one out there it still feels like victory! And now we’ve grown enough to leap across the pond. America, we are so excited to be here you have no idea.

Erica & Warren

Co-founders, 33Shake

Fueling limitless performance since 2012