POP OATS, LLC — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.5

Description

The co-founders of Pop Oats LLC (the "Company") in conjunction with a team from the USDA'sAgricultural Research Service Healthy Processed Foods Research Unit (the "USDA") havedeveloped a patent pending process for whole oat groats that provides long overdue innovationallowing oats to be positioned as both (i) a convenient ready-to-eat ("RTE") savory snack ("PopOats" - trademark registered on June 12 2018) and (ii) a distinctive new or substitute ingredientfor other companies' products ("Ingredient Sales") - for which interest has already been received.This SBIR Phase I submission is intended to support the continued R&D necessary for both.Unlike projects that may necessarily require Phase II funding to ultimately bring a product tomarket the Company and USDA's great progress since last year's unsuccessful SBIR Phase Isubmission attractively suggests that the Pop Oats snack could reasonably be launched in the BayArea shortly after the conclusion of Phase I funding.While Phase I research also touches on theprospect for Ingredient Sales a future Phase II submission would expand this researchdemonstrably to identify the most impactful opportunities for broader use within the food industry.Oats' health benefits are storied - their ability to help reduce the risk of heart disease (via beta- glucan and soluble fiber) earned them the FDA's first approved health claim in 1997 (FDA 2017).While oats have been a healthy staple in Americans' diets since the 1800s their consumption isstill largely confined to breakfast (e.g. oatmeal and cereal).That said the Company is committedto changing both how and when Americans eat oats.Since winning the Audience Choice Award in U.C. Berkeley's selective LAUNCH program (a 10- week startup accelerator) the Company has now completed and filed for a patent in collaborationwith the USDA (U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 16/010761 - filed 6/18/18).The patentpending process produces a uniquely crunchy oat unlike any other available on the market onewhich lends itself well to the savory snack market - an area where consumers are growinglylooking for healthier options (IRI 2017) and zero oat offerings currently exist.The Company'sgoal is to (i) initially launch its own flavored snack versions of the product - Pop Oats and (ii) latersell the unflavored variety as an ingredient for others to use in their own non-competing products.To achieve this three key objectives need be completed namely to: (i) optimize the productionelements of the final roasting process to create the uniform consistency that's necessary forcommercialization (ii) further research/refine two value-added processes (flavoring the oats andusing them as an ingredient) while maintaining the product's physical characteristics (e.g. moisturecontent water activity texture sensory) and health/nutrition quality (e.g. beta-glucan fiberprotein) and (iii) determine the ideal packaging to maximize the snack's shelf life and stability.The SBIR Phase I research is expected to demonstrate the value-added product's versatility indifferent forms and its opportunity as both a healthy affordable snack and ingredient with extendedshelf stability.The snack in particular will truly be a first of its kind for the market given (i) itsuse of the wholly intact oats (ii) its unmatched level of convenience (as compared to oatmeal orcereal) via its ready-to-eat nature and (iii) its use of savory flavors to promote outside-of-breakfastconsumption.The combination of these three distinctions may represent oats' greatest innovationsince instant and flavored oatmeal were introduced in the 1960s and 1970s.