The woman who took her kale chips from a small Oregon shop to a nationwide corporation is launching another product.

Sarah Pool and co-founder Matt Olsofsky have teamed up to create an up-cycled plant-based drink that comes from an unlikely source — beer.

Calling the product Canvas, Pool is using the backing of ZX Ventures, a global division of Anheuser-Busch InBev, and its access to 3 billion pounds of leftover, or spent, barley.

The high-protein, high-fiber beverage will be part of a $700 million plant-base products market that clocked a 20 percent spike in sales in 2017, according to the Plant Based Foods Association and the Good Food Institute that commissioned Nielsen, a retail sales research firm. Plant-based milk sales rose 3.1 percent in the same year, compared with a 5 percent decline in cow’s milk, according to Nielsen.

“The product is also positioning itself squarely in the middle of the rapidly growing plant-based protein trend, which in itself makes the product very marketable,” wrote BevNet, a beverage-oriented media company, in its September review of Canvas.

Olsofsky, a research and development chemist, is transitioning from global director at Anheuser-Busch InBev to working full-time with Canvas, he said. He brings to the table his experience with research and development. Pool, on the other hand, brings her experience of taking a product from the laboratory to the marketplace, which is what she did with her kale chip company Pacific Superfoods Snacks when she sold it to Made in Nature.

“The idea for Canvas was validated as part of ZX Ventures’ internal accelerator program in New York,” said Patrick O’Riordan, vice president of exploration at ZX Ventures. “When the venture was chosen for further seed investment at the accelerator demo day, ZX Ventures set about sourcing a founder with the right entrepreneurial experience to lead the venture and run it as a startup with the backing of ZX Ventures.

“We were connected through industry contacts and both immediately knew that this was a unique and exciting opportunity to transform the health of everyone through gut health and the natural power of dietary fiber.”

As a startup, Canvas is in the early stages of production, hiring people and finding markets for the product. This year Pool said she expects to have about five people on staff with expertise in various aspects of the food and beverage business. She hopes to have the product on sale at several West Coast stores within the next six months, but right now it’s available at the Market of Choice, she said.

“I got a call out of the blue and they said they (ZX Ventures) heard of what I’ve done with kale chips,” said Pool recently while she was in Bend visiting family. “It felt like it was meant to be. We have previous experience and the support from Anheuser-Busch, two things that are important for sustainability.”

O’Riordan said the process of preserving the spent barley using lactic acid fermentation to form the beverage is proprietary. The product doesn’t use any preservatives.

Spent barley is highly perishable because after it’s used in the beer-brewing process, it’s hot and wet and breeds bacteria quickly, Pool said. The nation’s largest brewery, Anheuser-Busch developed a process that extracts the fiber and protein left after the starch is used to make beer to create the beverage, Pool said.

Canvas drinks comes in four flavors — latte, vanilla, matcha, chai and cocoa, she said. There is a gritty taste to the drink, which is thick and lingers on the tongue. The drink is sweetened with coconut sugar, has 8 grams of plant protein and 11 grams of fiber.

“It’s a mini meal,” Pool said. “It’s all about gut health. Our microbiome in our guts affects our health. You can make your own canvas to restore your health. There’s no product on the market that has this.

“I drink it every day.”

At this time, the barley drink is shipped from New Jersey to a plant in California that is packaging it until a reliable, locally sourced supplier can be found, Olsofsky said.

After making the connection with ZX Ventures, Pool said she launched a Kickstarter campaign in August, which outperformed her initial $25,000 goal by raising more than $47,000.

An early iteration of the product called itself milk, but that confused consumers, Pool said. The product was changed to Canvas Shake because it’s thick, and it’s not a dairy product at all.

An athlete always looking for healthy snacks, Pool used that desire to launch Pacific Superfood Snacks in 2012 and two years later sold her company to Made In Nature, a nationwide organic snack food company. The same drive is fueling Pool’s launch of Canvas. Pool was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the Bend Chamber of Commerce, but considers this venture a clean canvas.

“I want to give people their time back and give them something healthy,” Pool said. “People are so zapped of their energy and tired. They need something easy to help make them healthy. At the end of the day, these products are about caring about our gut.”

— Reporter: 541-633-2117, sroig@bendbulletin.com