Healthy College Snacks is aiming high

Bart Newhouse is on a mission to help hungry kids, one snack pack at a time.

When he’s not selling home furnishings as part of the Hooker Furniture business that his family purchased nearly 60 years ago, Newhouse is creating care packages filled with tasty snacks that worrisome parents can buy and ship (for free!) to their starving student at colleges and boarding schools across the country.

The snack-centric business, called Healthy College Snacks, is based at the Hooker’s Furniture store off Route 100 in Waterbury Center.

The business is still fairly new, and this is the first back-to-school season in which parents and students could log on to the website, healthycollegesnacks.com, and really get a taste of what the mail-order service is all about.

Newhouse said he’s no stranger to the online gift box and basket game. About a year ago, Newhouse operated another startup called VermoCo, creating gourmet gift baskets with Vermont edibles and specialty products for sale at the Waterbury Center store and online.

Newhouse said that idea failed to flourish, but provided the market research and the ability to switch gears to the snack business.

He co-founded the snack business with Dan Keohane, a former salesman at the furniture store who built and maintains the company’s website. Newhouse calls him a “jack of all trades.”

“This is still very new. We really just got started in April,” Newhouse said. “We got the website ready and we just celebrated our second month with back-to-school traffic, and we’re still figuring out other marketing options.”

Though the name may suggest otherwise, Newhouse said the concept is not just for students. He figures anyone and everyone, kids and adults, would like to receive a box filled with tasty snacks.

Customers can choose from a number of package options, including gluten-free snacks, all-organic packs and mixes of energy bars, dried fruits and nuts.

Other packages are more meal-oriented — organic hot soups, macaroni and cheese, cold cereals and other breakfast foods.

The lower-sodium, preservative-free care packages range in price from $29 to $79, and are available as one-time orders or in a monthly subscription.

Newhouse said he was aiming for subscription-only, so students would receive a monthly package, but he realized not all customers were ready for that.

Newhouse has also made it his mission to help alleviate child hunger locally and nationwide.

“Five-year-olds shouldn’t have to worry where their next meal is coming from,” he said.

The health-conscious company has a new partnership with the Stowe Education Fund, creating care packages for the nonprofit. Newhouse lives in Stowe with his wife and two young sons; his business donates $5 for every box sold to further the fund’s mission to support and enrich education in Stowe schools.

In addition for each box shipped, “we donate three meals to the Vermont Foodbank,” he said. “As we build the company, we’ll start branching out and working with other areas, like national food banks, focusing specifically on programs that feed children.”

Newhouse said the company’s fundraising element allows a unique partnership with schools, charity organizations, and athletic departments to sell products either as a one-time push or a longer-running campaign.

“If a mom or dad wants to send their kid a care package and help out a specific charity, they can do that. We can partner with just about any organization that wants to sell the product and get a portion of the sales,” he said.

Newhouse is working on ways to team up with national charities, such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Student Veterans of America.