ABS Pancakes entered the Shark Tank in Season 7 to debut their low-carb pancakes that are non GMO, all natural, gluten free, and high in protein. Personal trainer Ashley Drummonds created the healthy pancake mix to solve her problem of eating her favorite breakfast food, but feeling tired and bloated afterwards. We spoke to her before her Tank episode aired. Here is what she told us about…
Buy ABS Pancake mix here.
How the Company Started
The idea came about in March of 2014, but I didn’t actually start turning that idea into a business until July of 2014. The idea came out of my love of breakfast foods and pancakes, but also being a personal trainer and women’s fitness expert wanting a way that I could enjoy my favorite foods without having to diet, while also helping my clients and others enjoy their favorite foods while losing weight and sticking to a healthy nutrition program.
How Her Fitness Background Assists in Her Mission
Working for years in the fitness industry, one of the biggest struggles I saw most individuals face when working on their weight loss and fitness goals is they always felt like they had to eat bland food in order to lose weight and it meant giving up their favorite foods like carbs, sweets, and basically anything that tasted good. Aside from fitness, I have a huge passion for baking and had experimented with some different protein powders and clean ingredients to stick to my own nutrition without feeling deprived. Out of a desire to help my clients while also helping myself, I wanted to find a way to enjoy things like chocolate, cake batter and cinnamon rolls as a regular meal, while also sticking to an all-natural and gluten-free nutrition plan. After lots of flavor testings, many protein powders and natural sweeteners, I finally was able to come up with the right consistency and flavor so that anyone can enjoy these ABS Protein Pancakes and Waffles as part of their weight loss or fitness program without feeling deprived or without giving up their favorite foods.
Buy ABS Pancake mix here.
Her ‘Tank’ Experience
At the start of creating ABS Pancakes, I always watched Shark Tank every week and was inspired by the hundreds of entrepreneurs that appear on the show and always had the aspirations to create a brand that would impact millions of people in a positive way like so many of the Shark entrepreneurs do. After having my first sale in August of 2014, I really wanted a way to launch the brand because I knew how much it would help people and the amount of impact it would make. During this time, I had three or four people in one day tell me “You should go on Shark Tank,” and I have just a general rule of life that if you are told something more than once maybe you should listen. So that day I went home and applied for the show around September and just let it go. Around March, I got a call back from one of the crew of Shark Tank saying they received my application and really liked my business and wanted to take me to the next step of the process of submitting a Youtube video of my audition. Long story short, I got another call back and after a lot of ‘next steps of the process,’ I got the final call back that they wanted my business to film for Season 7 and I was beyond ecstatic! The entire process is the biggest lesson of patience I have ever had, but one of the most amazing experiences as well.
Plans for the Future
My future plans with ABS is to create more flavors-especially holiday flavors-and possibly some vegan-friendly options since this is a request I get a lot. I also would love to start focusing more on the mission of the brand and eventually speak on the topic of women in business and empowering women that they can create a life and body of their dreams since I think body image issues is huge with women in America. Other products specifically that I would like to come out with will still fall in line with the healthy foods/meal replacement options, but probably in the dessert and baking space. I would love to start a whole revolution of showing people how to enjoy all of their favorite foods and get their life and confidence back as part of a healthy nutrition program.