GAINS protein bars, developed by students Stijn van Uffelen and Kris Stallenberg, are a big hit in the sports center. Next academic year, the students want to expand their business. 'Our bars are better than Arnold Swarzenegger's.'

GAINS. It is the product that should take over the campus next year. If it is up to its makers, Stijn van Uffelen and Kris Stallenberg. GAINS are protein bars for during study, exercise or work. Better than those Arnold Schwarzenegger makes, because of the absence of added flavoring or E numbers, says Stallenberg. ‘Stijn and I were looking for a quick bite that gives you energy and is healthy at the same time. That did not exist yet, so we decided to make it ourselves.’

Van Uffelen and Stallenberg are philosophy students – not necessarily the program to learn about these things. Next to that, Stallenberg also studies speech therapy and Van Uffelen mathematics and physics. This lost one was convenient, because the first research for the development process was done in a laboratory at the Huygens building, last month.

And still, improvements are made. The new batch of GAINS (available after summer break) will be preservable much longer. They also want to outsource the the production process to a bakery in Nijmegen, so that they only have to worry about promotion and their soon-to-come web shop.

Last week, the two students and their sport buddies were in the sports center to promote their bars. They sold everything within two days. ‘GAINS are pretty big and contain much more proteins than existing bars. Most people are proud to be able to eat them in one bite. Many of them come back to say they really liked it.’

So, will GAINS go viral next year? ‘That would be very cool. Not necessarily because we want to make money, but because we believe in this product.’

More info? Look at the GAINS Facebook page!