The Story Behind YES Bar’s Low-Sugar Snacks for the Office

When you grab a bar from the basket of low-sugar snacks in your office break room, do you ever stop to wonder how it got into that wrapper? 

At YES Bar—a small business that makes healthy, nutty cookie bars for offices—machines didn’t always do the job. At one point, CEO Brennan Spreitzer and his business partner, Jeremy Cohen, got up at the crack of dawn every day to portion out the bars by hand.

“For about a year, we would wake up at 4 a.m. and hand-scoop and press the bars until midnight, just so that we could push this thing through,” Brennan told The FruitGuys. “It was definitely a labor of love.” 

That love story actually began before Brennan joined the company and helped turn it into a national brand. It started with founder Abigail Wald, who created the first YES Bar in her Los Angeles kitchen.

How The First YES Bar Came to Be

In 2013, Abigail’s young son Arthur went on an elimination diet to identify his many food sensitivities. He wasn’t allowed to eat gluten, grain, dairy, corn, soy, eggs, peanuts, or refined sugars—and it was breaking Abigail’s heart. 

“She was tired of saying ‘no’ to everything he wanted to try and eat. So, frustrated and wanting to do something for her son to make him happy, she started pulling out all these ingredients she knew she could say ‘yes’ to and made this healthy, delicious snack that looked and tasted like a cookie but was super nutritious,” Brennan said. 

The Story Behind the Name

The original YES Bar was a round cookie shape (today they’re rectangular), and it was packed with whole-food ingredients, including macadamia nuts, cherries, apricots, cranberries, almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, and golden flax. Abigail sweetened it with vanilla and maple syrup, added a bit of creamy texture with tahini and coconut butter, and finished the cookie bar off with sea salt. 

The low-sugar snack was such a hit with Abigail’s family that she and her husband Eric decided to turn it into a business—and those ‘yes’ ingredients gave the company its name. Within a few years, YES Bars were stocked on the shelves of gourmet food shops across California. 

What Makes YES Bar’s Low-Sugar Snacks for the Office Break Room Unique

Brennan told us that YES Bar stands out in the snack rack because of the intention behind it. 

“This wasn’t created in a lab to hit certain macros. We’re not trying to use cheaper filler ingredients to hit certain protein counts or specific amounts of fiber or sugar. This is a delicious, healthy snack meant to bring joy and positivity to people,” he said. 

Those clean, simple ingredients mean YES Bars are vegan, paleo, and keto-friendly. The bars are also free from common allergens like gluten, grains, dairy, corn, soy, eggs, and refined sugars. If you can safely eat nuts, you can probably eat YES Bars. 

Speaking of nuts, those are another thing that sets YES Bars apart. The bars get their soft, chewy texture from a “unique grinding process” that turns the nuts into a kind of flour.

“Our bars have half of your daily intake of nuts per bar, so they definitely keep you full, satisfied, satiated, and don’t spike your blood sugar,” Brennan said. 

YES Bar’s Sourcing & Sustainability

YES Bar is on a mission to reduce its environmental footprint. The company sources almonds, apples, cherries, and cranberries from California farms near its headquarters and chooses domestic crops over imports whenever possible. 

Brennan told us that his team is also looking for ways to reduce YES Bar’s food waste and exploring other green ideas like carbon offsetting and compostable packaging. They hope to offer a fully zero-waste bar in a compostable wrapper by 2027. 

How New Partners Helped Grow the Family Business

Brennan is passionate about the YES Bar story, but he isn’t part of the Wald family—so how does he fit into the puzzle? 

He told us that he and his business partner, Jeremy, joined the company in 2016 after he bought his first YES Bar at a Bi-Rite market in San Francisco. Brennan is gluten-intolerant, so the bar caught his eye, and he was hooked from the first soft, chewy bite. 

He and Jeremy worked for a food distribution company and reached out to the Walds to see if they were interested in a partnership. Abigail wasn’t quite ready to go national at the time, but the meeting was still a success. 

“We all just clicked,” Brennan recalled. “They were so warm and fun and kind, and you could see the intention behind the product and what they were trying to do.” 

Brennan and Jeremy left distribution and joined YES Bar. Today, they run the day-to-day operations of the company for Abigail and Eric. That’s how they ended up on the production line! 

A few years ago, the sticky, nutty dough kept shorting out the machine that pressed the cookies into shape. So, Brennan and Jeremy hand-scooped them until they found a solution. Changing the shape from round to rectangular did the trick. With that problem solved, YES Bar ramped up production, added more flavors, and expanded its reach. In 2024, the company joined forces with The FruitGuys. We deliver its tasty bars to offices nationwide in our curated snack mixes.

The Best Way to Eat a YES Bar in the Office Break Room

There’s no wrong way to eat a YES Bar, but Brennan has a go-to. 

“I really enjoy eating it with a cup of coffee in the morning as my healthy breakfast,” he said. “It’s a great pairing. Then, if I’m really needing something in between meals or before a workout, I’ll have a bar. It doesn’t weigh you down, and it gives you really good, clean fuel.”

How to Order YES Bars from The FruitGuys for National Wellness Month

If you haven’t tried YES Bars yet, this is the perfect time to add the low-sugar snacks to your office break room! We’re celebrating them as our Snack of the Month for National Wellness Month in August 2025. That means we’re adding cookie bars to all of our August Thoughtful Snack Box mixes. Look for three sweet and decadent flavors: Dark Chocolate Chip, Apple Cinnamon Crisp, and Salted Maple Pecan. 

We’re also offering YES Bars by the case for bulk deliveries. Whether you’re hosting a wellness challenge, yoga session, or lunch-and-learn for National Wellness Month, they’re the perfect snack pairing for your celebration.