Stephen Longo used to eat Klondike bars as a kid. The ones in the silver wrapper with the soft ice cream middle and the crackle of chocolate on the outside. His mom always kept a few in the freezer. Later, after college, after the finance job, after all the gym stuff, he started thinking about them again.
It wasn’t because he missed dessert. It was because he couldn’t find anything that scratched that same itch. Something cold. Something chocolate-covered. Something with a little give in the center when you bit into it. Everything he came across was either a melted protein shake pretending to be a bar, or some dry, shelf-stable thing that left chalk on your teeth. So he started making his own.
The first versions were more like frozen pancakes than ice cream bars. He poured the mixture into Tupperware lids, let it freeze, then popped the tops off and ate them with a spoon. That was before the chocolate coating. Before the wrappers. Before he came up with the name. It was just him and some egg whites in a blender, standing in a Jersey Shore kitchen, trying to make a snack that didn’t taste like a compromise.
He called them Orka Bars. “Orka” with a K. Like the whale. Or the Icelandic word for energy, depending on the mood. He liked both. He was living in Belmar at the time. Surfing some mornings, playing beach volleyball on weekends. He said the ocean had always been the place where his head cleared. Where he came up with ideas. Orka felt right.
He started handing out bars to friends. Clients. Trainers he knew from the gym. “Just try this.” No label, no pitch. Just a frozen thing in a Ziploc. The feedback was quick. “Tastes like a cheat meal.” “What’s in this?” “Can I buy a box?”
He moved production into a shared kitchen space in Asbury Park. Rented freezer storage. Ordered molds. Started packing shipments himself in coolers with dry ice. For a while, it was all local delivery. People would order online, and he’d load up his car and drop them off door to door. Sometimes he’d sit in the parking lot of a gym and hand out samples from the trunk.
The bars themselves are simple. A soft frozen center made with egg whites and cream, plus a little whey. Then a thin chocolate shell. They come in flavors like mint, cookies and cream, raspberry. You eat them straight out of the freezer. No microwaving, no thawing. Some people treat them like dessert. Others eat one for breakfast. Someone once said it felt like eating a Thin Mint that got into clean eating. He liked that.
They do have protein. But he doesn’t lead with that. He says the point wasn’t to make a protein bar. It was to make something people actually wanted to eat.
As the orders grew, he stopped doing local drops. Started shipping to 20-plus states. Built the packaging out. Got a grant from Rutgers’ food innovation lab to help scale production. Even landed a spot on Shark Tank, which he almost didn’t mention at first. He’s not big on pitching. Just wants people to try the bar.
He still makes every batch the same way—small, cold, and real. You keep them in the freezer. You bite into them like a treat. And for a few minutes, you remember how good it feels to eat something that doesn’t taste like a tradeoff.
