Since starting JoJé Bar in 2016, founder and CEO Jess Cerra’s mission has been to create a line of energy bars baked with real-food ingredients that strikes the perfect balance of taste and nutrition.
While the bars fulfilled this quest –- Cerra also was trying to find a way to balance all of her life’s goals and ambitions, from being a founder and CEO, to a professional chef and instructor, a professional gravel cyclist and event organizer, as well as a journalist and TV correspondent.
Cerra has taken another toward finding that balance as RoadRunner Holdings LLC announced the addition of JoJé Bar to its portfolio of athlete-focused active nutrition brands. Cerra will become the Vice President of Product and Community Development for RoadRunner, working alongside RoadRunner Holdings CEO Mac Tillman.
“When I first spoke with Mac, I knew in the first 30 seconds that this was a good fit,” said Cerra. “I’d spoken to private equity firms in the past, but Mac and his team at RoadRunner were completely different. He presented something that was good for my life’s balance and good for the health of the JoJé Bar brand. It was clear that RoadRunner valued me as a founder and created a plan that worked for me on a number of levels.”
Now Cerra can focus on the things she loves, the gravel cycling community, race organizing, working on diversity and inclusion in the industry, and being a mentor. And she gets to continue thinking primarily about the bars themselves and the communities they are made for, rather than the things that bogged her down in the past, such as finance and forecasting, and supply chain and distribution logistics.
JoJé Bar will join the RoadRunner team alongside SaltStick, which makes electrolyte products for people who sweat by providing the right balance of ingredients that perfectly replace the electrolytes these athletes lose, now sold in more than 40 countries.
