ATLANTA, GA , Sept. 17, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Most energy bars take a few months to develop. ILA took six years.
Today, the company is launching its first two products, ILA Chocolate and ILA Peanut, plant-based energy bars built around whole-food ingredients and adaptogenic herbs. What sets the brand apart isn't the launch itself. It's who built it, and how long they were willing to wait to get it right.
Amy Saleh (left) and Eileen Brantley (right), co-founders and lead herbalists behind ILA.
ILA was founded by Amy Saleh and Eileen Brantley, practicing clinical herbalists with more than two decades of combined training and hands-on herbal practice. Saleh is a Certified Holistic Herbalist trained at the BotanoLogos School of Herbal Studies and is currently a doctoral candidate in acupuncture and herbal medicine. Brantley holds a Master of Science in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine and is a Certified Nutrition Specialist, alongside her own herbalism certification from the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine. Together, the two have taught herbal medicine workshops across the Southeast, spoken on adaptogens at the Organic Growers Symposium, and been recognized by the American Herbalist Guild.
That background is the reason ILA exists. Saleh and Brantley didn't set out to build a snack brand and add herbs later. They set out to make daily adaptogen use realistic for people who needed something they'd actually reach for every day, not one more supplement to remember, and the bar became the vehicle.
"I've spent my career studying which herbs actually do something and at what dose," said Saleh. "Putting that into a bar sounds simple until you try it. Most of the six years wasn't spent on flavor. It was spent making sure the herbs were dosed the way we'd dose them for a client, not the way that looks good on a label."
"Deciding on Reishi and Ashwagandha, and getting the amounts right, wasn't what slowed us down. That's our job as herbalists," said Brantley. "What took years was sourcing extracts we could actually stand behind, verified for potency and where they came from, not just a supplier's word for it."
ILA calls its formulation approach Macro Meets Micro: balanced whole-food ingredients, like pea and hemp protein and dates, that provide clean, sustained energy, naturally sweetened with coconut blossom syrup, paired with nutrient-dense adaptogenic herbs that support the body's stress response. Both launch flavors include Reishi and Ashwagandha. The company refers to the resulting product philosophy as Adaptive Energy+™, its term for energy that helps the body adapt to daily stress steadily over time, rather than the all-at-once spike and crash associated with stimulants or sugar.
The founders worked alongside food scientist Gana Otgonbayar to translate that herbal knowledge into something that could actually be manufactured and shelf-stable, without diluting the herb quality herbalists would recognize as legitimate. ILA sources standardized herbal extracts chosen specifically for bioavailability, a detail that matters more to two clinical herbalists than most food brands ever consider. The company is a member of the American Herbal Products Association.
Each bar delivers 9 grams of plant-based protein and is non-GMO, gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan, with no artificial ingredients. ILA Chocolate pairs cocoa and chocolate pieces with the brand's core formulation. ILA Peanut uses real peanut butter and roasted peanuts. Both are available now in 5-pack and 12-pack formats, with subscription ordering, at ila-life.com, and through wholesale via Faire.
For Saleh and Brantley, the six-year timeline was never a delay. It was the point.
"We're herbalists first," said Saleh. "That means we don't get to shortcut dosing just because it would help us launch faster. We'd rather be six months late and right than six months early and not able to stand behind it."
Adaptogenic claims are everywhere in the snack aisle right now, and not all of them hold up. ILA's pitch to skeptical shoppers is simple: its formulation was led by the same clinical rigor its founders bring to client work, not added for marketing after the fact.
ILA Chocolate and ILA Peanut are available now at ila-life.com and through Faire for wholesale partners.
About ILA
ILA is a clean energy bar brand founded by practicing clinical herbalists Amy Saleh and Eileen Brantley. Formulated around a Macro Meets Micro approach, pairing whole-food macronutrients with adaptogenic herbs, ILA's products are the result of six years of formulation work led by Saleh and Brantley, herbalists and, in Brantley's case, also a Certified Nutrition Specialist, alongside food scientist Gana Otgonbayar. ILA's core flavors, ILA Chocolate and ILA Peanut, each deliver 9 grams of plant-based protein from pea and hemp, are naturally sweetened with dates and coconut blossom syrup, and are non-GMO, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, and free from artificial ingredients. ILA is a member of the American Herbal Products Association. Learn more at ila-life.com.
ILA Chocolate and ILA Peanut include 9g of plant-based protein and are made with adaptogens like Ashwagandha and Reishi.
Media Contact
Victoria Edmands, Marketing Director
ILA
vedmands@ila-life.com
(770) 385-1187
ila-life.com
Media Contact Victoria Edmands, Marketing Director ILA vedmands@ila-life.com (770) 385-1187 ila-life.com
