Formation and year of organization
We were incorporated on October 13, 2011, in the State of Delaware. Our authorized capital consists of 100,000,000 shares of our common stock (the “Common Shares”) with a par value of $0.0001 per common share.
We do not own any real property. We have virtual mail address located at 427 N Tatnall St., #32607, Wilmington, DE 19801-2230, our telephone and fax number is (888)267-1134. Except for the virtual mail address and the rent free use of a room at the premises of our President in Jerusalem for our operations in Israel, the Company does not own or rent any property. We expect that once our business is able to expand and we have the financial resources then we will seek additional rental locations for our operations, including in Israel. Our telephone number is (888) 267-1134.
Bankruptcy, Receivership or Similar Proceeding
We have never declared bankruptcy, have never been in receivership, and have never been involved in any legal actions or proceedings.
Recent Corporate Developments
In the fourth quarter of 2012, we completed the design of our graphic/web design materials for use as part of our advertising and promotional materials. We have not yet found a third party manufacturer, but have traveled to Europe to meet with potential manufacturers.
Business of Issuer
Our Company believes that the search for a healthier life is linked directly an active life and to improvements in our eating habits and how we choose our foods. It seems to be a concern on the mind of many individuals who are also trying to have an active healthy life style, including by participating in sports events such as triathlons and marathons. MBC believes that the concept behind organic energy bars is aligned with healthy lifestyle concerns as they assist athletes in eating naturally grown products.
The market for organic foods is growing year over year, and is a flourishing market. As an example, in the United States, research released in 2008 revealed that consumers are increasingly incorporating organic foods into their lifestyles. “Total household penetration across six product categories has risen from 57 percent in 2006 to 59 percent in 2007 (source: http://www.grabstats.com/statmain.asp?StatID=1176 ). The research also showed that the number of core users has increased from 16 percent in 2006 to 18 percent in 2007.” Source: http://www.grabstats.com/statmain.asp?StatID=1177 .
We intend to create a fully functional website (www.m-bar.co) with updates as to healthy events to occur in Israel and post free organic recipes as a way to attract individuals who also will choose to purchase one of organic health bars. We have secured the web domain and the current website is a template of what we expect to further develop. The website is still under construction.
4
Therefore we expect to generate revenue by selling our organic health bars:
o
at local sporting events,
through health stores;
and over our website:
We believe that Marathon Bar will also attract individuals who are seeking a correct and balanced diet for diabetes, losing weight or even athletes who need a help to be on track for their special nutritional and dietary requirements.
We do not plan to manufacture organic food directly, but rather to have as yet unidentified third party suppliers/partners deliver directly to our customers. We plan on establishing a commissioning policy for each supplier/partner. We expect that our suppliers will be able to deliver the products to our clients using their existing structure. If one or all of our suppliers can’t provide delivery service, we would have to hire a third party delivery company and, in this case, we would charge a delivery fee to our clients. In order to keep the delivery cost down, we intend to seek for several clients who live in the same area, so, more deliveries would be made at each time.
Initially we intend to hire a freelance student to hand out free organic health bars at sporting events held in public locations. We intend to do this at major soccer, basketball and other sporting events, running events and other public sports events, including in the large metropolitan areas of Tel-Aviv and Haifa. We expect to also achieve some free “editorial” media coverage as these matches and the crowd is often covered by the evening news.
Distribution to Stores
We plan to hire a yet undetermined distribution company to be responsible for distributing this product to retail chains. Our President will make the introduction into the retail chains by calling on the buyers of these establishments. All distribution and collection of monies will be done by the distributors we plan to hire in the future. Our product will have an additional 15% fee added on to it in order to cover the costs of the distributor. We intend to establish a direct sales channel with Eden Teva Markets which is a chain of health food stores in addition to the major chain stores such as Supersol, Blue Square, and others. We intend to offer them to sell our organic health bars and place the product on their shelves. Here too we intend to have students handing out tasters to passing customers, thereby explaining the benefits of the health bar we are selling.
Market Analysis
According to the website Wikipedia, organic food is the fastest growing sector of the American food marketplace. In management’s belief, we expect that this is a growth industry in the Israeli food marketplace as well. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food. In the United States, organic food sales have grown by 17 to 20 percent a year for the past few years while sales of conventional food have grown at only about 2 to 3 percent a year Source: http://www.health-wellness-4all.com/organic-food.html.
The Organic Trade Association’s 2010 Organic Industry Survey also reinforces the potential of organic food marketplace:
“Organic product sales in 2009 grew by 5.3 percent overall, to reach $26.6 billion. Of that figure, $24.8 billion represented organic food. The remaining $1.8 billion were sales of organic non-foods. While total U.S. food sales grew by only 1.6 percent in 2009, organic food sales grew by 5.1 percent. Experiencing the most growth, organic fruits and vegetables, which represent 38 percent of total organic food sales, reached nearly $9.5 billion in sales in 2009, up 11.4 percent from 2008 sales. Most notable, organic fruits and vegetables now represent 11.4 percent of all U.S. fruit and vegetable sales.” Source: www.organicnewsroom.com/2010/04/us_organic_product_sales_reach_1.html
5
“Mass market grocery stores represent the largest single distribution channel, accounting for 38 percent of organic food sales in 2006. This is up from a 35 percent share of total sales in 2005. The natural food channel is still strong. The sales of larger grocery natural food stores combined with smaller independent natural food stores and chains accounts for 44 percent of organic food and beverage sales. Mass merchandisers and club stores, food service, internet/mail order and farmers’ markets represent 8 percent, 4 percent, 2.2 percent, and 2 percent of organic food sales, respectively. Source: http://www.ota.com/definition/quickoverview.html
New research from The Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) released in 2008 reveals that consumers are increasingly incorporating organic into their lifestyles. Total household penetration across six product categories has risen from 57 percent in 2006 to 59 percent in 2007. The research also showed that the number of core users has increased from 16 percent in 2006 to 18 percent in 2007 Source: http://www.grabstats.com/statmain.asp?StatID=1176/ http://www.grabstats.com/statmain.asp?StatID=1177
Finally, organic food and agriculture have taken hold in the Israeli market place. Between 2006 and 2008, according to statistics by the Israel Bio-Organic Agriculture Association (IBOAA) sales of organic foods in Israel grew by 30% and organic systems now account for almost 5% of total agriculture in Israel – a figure comparable to many western countries where the organic market is much more developed. The trend is even greater today. http://www.greenprophet.com/2008/04/smallscale-farming-big/
Management feels that there is a large potential growth in the development of online sales of organic foods, including sports health bars manufactured with organic ingredients. Marathon Bar intends to penetrate this market using a strategy of attracting customers to buy its energy bars by explaining the health and athletic benefits of an organic energy bar. We have no arrangements in place with any of the companies identified as organic food suppliers.
Description of our Product
Our business will be based on the development of the website www.m-bar.co, from which we expect to attract customers who are interested in purchasing organic energy health bars to consume prior, during or after their training or participation in sporting events.
Competitive Advantages
Currently, we are not offering any services or selling any product in our website as we are still in the development stage of our company. Our main competitor is a local Israeli based company, On Target Sports founded in 2005 that has focused on importing and marketing specialty equipment/gear and nutrition for endurance athletes, in order to help them reach their goal. Their wholesale chain covers the entire country with over 100 stores: Bike, professional running, triathlon, fitness clubs, health and nutrition. In addition to traditional stores, their distribution network includes kiosks and booths at major sports events year round, in order to showcase its products and to meet its customers' needs. We intend to sell our products in these markets and believe that our main advantage will be our ability to cooperate with other food distributors and work within their networks as an additional source of endurance products. We expect to have a significant distinction from our competition due to our business model, where we plan to offer different services and products from those available on our competitors’ websites such as:
Forums for the users of our product that are open to all endurance athletes and not driven by specific teams or clubs
Updates as to which events will be sponsored by us as well as tips for such event
Comparisons among different products even if these products are distributed by competitors
6
Since we are initially targeting the market segment to ages 18 to 50, we believe that in addition to advertising at triathlon, running and other sports events, the internet will play an important marketing vehicle to get Marathon Bar known. Bearing this in mind, our plan consists of:
Facebook (www.facebook.com): by creating a profile for Marathon Bar, we expect to join a community interested in organic energy bars and healthy eating habits. In this way, we can make our business known and attract more potential users to our services.
Twitter (www.twitter.com): by posting information about organic health bars and healthy eating habits, we intend to promote our business and attract more users to our website. Also, by encouraging our users to post opinions and suggestions about our organic energy bars we expect to raise interest to our business
Also we plan to advertise on the website products and services related to weekend sports events and healthy eating habits and to participate in expositions and forums.
Intellectual Property
We intend, in due course, subject to legal advice, to apply for trademark protection and/or copyright protection in Israel and other jurisdictions. We intend to aggressively assert our rights trademark and copyright laws to protect our intellectual property, including product design, product research and concepts and recognized trademarks. These rights are protected through the acquisition of trademark registrations, the maintenance of copyrights, and, where appropriate, litigation against those who are, in our opinion, infringing these rights.
While there can be no assurance that registered trademarks and copyrights will protect our proprietary information, we intend to assert our intellectual property rights against any infringer. Although any assertion of our rights can result in a substantial cost to, and diversion of effort by, our Company, management believes that the protection of our intellectual property rights is a key component of our operating strategy.
Regulatory Matters
We are unaware of and do not anticipate having to expend significant resources to comply with any governmental regulations. However, we still need to verify certifications and possible government approvals needed to execute our business. We are subject to the laws and regulations of those jurisdictions in which we plan to sell our product, which are generally applicable to business operations, such as business licensing requirements, income taxes and payroll taxes. In general, the development and operation of our business is not subject to special regulatory and/or supervisory requirements.
Employees and Employment Agreements
As the date of this Annual Report, MBC has no permanent staff other than its sole Officer and Director, Mr. Zivel, who is the President, CEO and Chairman of the Company. Mr. Zivel is employed elsewhere and has the flexibility to work on MBC up to 15 hours per week. He is prepared to devote more time to our operations as may be required. He is not being paid at present.
There are no employment agreements in existence. The Company presently does not have pension, health, annuity, insurance, stock options, profit sharing or similar benefit plans; however, the Company may adopt plans in the future. Management does not plan to hire additional employees at this time. Our sole Officer and Director will be responsible for the initial servicing. When the Company raises enough funds and resumes the work on its current Internet website template (www.m-bar.cm), it will hire an independent consultant for the further development and finalization of the site. The Company also intends to hire sales representatives initially on a commission only basis to keep administrative overhead to a minimum.