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It’s like Spotify (the music app), but for athletes’ bodies: The Feed is an online sport food store that sends subscribers monthly deliveries of gels, energy bars, chews—all tailored to your preferences. Prefer organic fuel? Vegan? Gluten- or dairy-free? The Feed stocks them all, and includes up-and-coming brands that haven’t yet landed on big retailers’ shelves. TheFeed.com saves you a trip to the store, and introduces you to options you won’t find at Whole Foods or your local running shop.
You can even limit your picks to local options, now that the Boulder-based company has introduced the “Best of Colorado Box.” Starting at $30, the assortment features Colorado brands such as Honey Stinger, Skratch Labs, Bobo’s, Honey Bunchies, and Rodeo Adventure Labs.
Never heard of those last two? Neither had I (and I write about sport nutrition). But that’s precisely what’s neat about the Feed: It sells startup, mom-and-pop brands right alongside Clif and Powerbar. “We want to provide exposure for new companies,” says The Feed’s CEO and co-founder, Matt Johnson. The Best of Colorado Box does that on a local level. “We’re a Colorado company and want to do our best to support other local businesses,” he says.
The Feed currently sells about 60 brands of sport food. Shoppers can make one-time purchases, or sign up for monthly shipments—except that unlike CSA-style veggie deliveries, you can limit what you don’t like by telling the Feed to keep those products out of your future boxes.
You can even get fueling advice from the service’s sport nutritionists. The site provides a phone number and email address that shoppers can use to get answers to questions such as, “What are the foods least likely to cause digestive upset during my upcoming half-marathon?” or “What’s the best way to fuel up for an early-morning ride?” That’s the kind of product support you just can’t get from the clerks at Whole Foods.