Maxim Nutritionals bars cross the Atlantic

Maxim America (PZ Sports Nutrition) will introduce its Maxim Nutritionals line of fortified sports bars and gels to the North American market at InterBike 2004.

Maxim will launch 11 new products at the International Bike Show to be held in Las Vegas on 6-8 October, including two recovery bars, six energy bars, and three gels.

The recovery bar comes in two flavors including apricot/orange and banana, while the energy bars are available in chocolate banana, banana yogurt, mango/raspberry yogurt, caramel chocolate, caramel, and chocolate vanilla. The three gels are flavored with citrus, strawberry and vanilla caffeine tastes.

Maxim America, formerly known as Zoeller Marketing, joined forces with Prinsen Food Group in May with the aim of introducing Maxim Nutritionals products into the North American market. Until now, Maxim's sports nutritional lines - owned by the Dutch food manufacturer Prinsen Foods - have not been sold outside Europe.

Before the merger of the two companies Maxim - in its old guise of Zoeller - distributed the Extran Professional line of sports products. At InterBike, Extran will also be showing its liquid and powder carbohydrate drink and liquid thirstquencher.

This range will still be available but will gradually become integrated into the Maxim line. Both sets of products have been well received by the biking community and Maxim's bars have scored highly in taste and energy tests in various European biking magazines.

At the time of the merger, Larry Zoeller, the director of marketing at Zoeller, explained to NutraIngredientsUSA that the new venture would be focusing initially on the US and Canada.

"After the first year we will turn our attention to Latin America," he said. "We have had lots of interest from Mexico and would also expect to focus on Costa Rica and Puerto Rico. When we move into these countries we will look at the competition and see what is already used and what products we need to customize for these markets," he said.