37 years in the making
A Story
A Professional skier
Kid grows up 1 of 9 children, spends his childhood outdoors, becomes a pro-skier, creates a traveling ski show, starts selling premium sunglasses driving up and down the east coast with his twin brother, goes on to spend the next 37 years working with multiple iconic outdoor brands, decides to run marathons, busts his Achilles, rehabs, takes up yoga and cross-fit, then realizes that all he really wants is a healthy snack to munch on.
After 900 hours
So he begins a quest to create an impossibly good trail mix better than anything else he could find. 3 Years, 52 Recipes & 900 Hours later, the incredible recipe was perfected. Another year searching for the best of the best organic ingredients from artisan farmers. Now, he just needed a name. Went through 1,200, using a working name as a placeholder...
Shār is born
Luckily, a nice woman told him it was horrible and one long sleepless night & inspired morning later, the name Shār was born. Now he needed packaging. It had to be as unique as the product (and good for the planet) so the plastic free reusable tube was bor. He's on a quest to make Shār the most sustainable, impossibly good snacking brand on the planet.
2022 Good Foods Awards Winner – Snack Category
2024 – Shār Snacks is now officially a Certified B Corp!
2021 Pentawards Silver Medal – Sustainable Packaging Design
2021 Outdoor Retailer Design & Innovation & Awards – Finalist
THE OUTDOORS
As a child, Peter Rushford spent all his time playing outside in Vermont infusing a love for the outdoors and a yearning to always be active. This deep-seated passion inspired him to pursue a 5-year odyssey as a professional skier, coach, and ski instructor. In this pursuit, he discovered several premium outdoor brands and decided he wanted to help get their products in front of other consumers and started a sales agency to do so. That excursion turned into a 37-year journey of working with some of the most iconic outdoor brands in the world selling to people that loved the outdoors as much as he did.
THE QUEST
After 4 years, the recipe and the ingredients were finally ready for the ‘trail’. He now had an organic, Non-GMO, plant-based, gluten-free, and paleo-friendly snack made in small batches sourced from socially responsible artisan farmers and with no preservatives, stabilizers, or sweeteners - just clean 100% organic ingredients. All crafted together to create an orchestra of flavors and a symphony of textures to make what we proudly call an “impossibly good” snack.
THE NAME
During that time, Peter was trying to come up with a name for the company. He went through 1,200 ideas yet nothing matched the level of the product nor the message he wanted to convey. Just as he was about to give up and move forward with a lackluster placeholder name, he was persuaded by a stranger not to settle. That divine nudge inspired Peter to approach the process differently. To think about what he really appreciated in life and in work. He loved sharing — the outdoors, an active lifestyle, and of course, the stories behind the products and brands that made his sales career so rewarding.
This idea perfectly complemented another of Peter’s long-held beliefs: that we all share this earth, its bounty, and the responsibility to take care of it. And so, with a little play on words and a phonetic spelling to differentiate it, the name shār was born (pronounced like ‘bear’ as in the bear with the bird in our logo).
THE TUBE
But it didn’t stop there. This idea was too important and there was a bigger vision unfolding. Now we needed packaging that was as good for the planet as the product was for our taste buds and our bodies. We started researching packaging options, presentation formats, and sampling materials while imagining different ways the brand could repay Mother Nature for all the rich outdoor experiences she gifts us every single day.
THE JOURNEY
Since shār has been introduced to the world, that pursuit of great taste, commitment to quality ingredients, and earth-first ethos have paid off in the form of national awards for our trail mix, packaging, and brand. And our snacks can be found in over 1,200 retailers, hotels, and boutiques, in all 50 states. We are on a mission to be one of the most sustainable snack companies in the world and hope to inspire other brands to join us and go plastic-free and responsibly source all of their ingredients and supplies.
It’s a journey that is just getting started and one that we hope you will join us on, create unforgettable stories, and help us show the world that we can build impossibly good snacks.
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