What Happened to The Better Bagel? The Bizarre Story Behind the Viral Protein Bagel Brand
Do you remember The Better Bagel? In case I need to jog your memory, The Better Bagel was one of the earliest protein bagels to hit the market, launching way back in 2021.
Each bagel had just 160 calories, 35 grams of fiber (yes, you read that right), and 26 grams of protein. The company was wildly successful, valued at $170,000,000, in major retailers, and well ahead of the protein curve.
And then in the blink of an eye, the company just vanished. Website gone. CEO missing. No warning, no heads up to investors or customers, and no explanation.
Buckle up, because this is a story straight out of a Netflix documentary.
What exactly was The Better Bagel and BetterBrand?
BetterBrand, created by Aimee Yang, was a “tech-food startup” that launched in 2021 with grand plans. The company developed a proprietary “Grain-changing Technology,” which might sound like nonsense… because it sort of is.
As a tech/food company, BetterBrand was looking for a way to get ahead in the health space. Their “grain-changing technology” was basically a proprietary combination of ingredients and processes that take something carb-heavy and drastically reduce the carbs by making them indigestible.
In other words: fiber. They used fiber.
They launched The Better Bagel as their main product as a way to demonstrate this technology, and they did so with 35 grams of fiber per bagel.
I can’t say that the macros aren’t impressive for a bagel, but the marketing-skeptic in me can’t help but laugh at the “Grain-Changing Technology” trademark, since there are hundreds of other products out there also using fiber to bring the carbs and calories way down. I mean, in the bread space alone, we have Royo and Hero bagels, both very successful brands.
I did review The Better Bagel back in 2022, and I thought they were fine. As a direct replacement for bagels, they weren’t great. But for what they were (a super low-carb & high protein alternative), they were decent.
Regardless of how I felt about these bagels, there’s no denying that they were a huge success. By 2023, just two years after launching, BetterBrand was valued at $170million, having raised over $10M in total venture-backed funding.
In the words of Business Wire: Founder Aimee Yang sets record for highest Series A valuation posted by a female founder in venture history.
Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty big deal.
The Better Bagel was now nationwide at major retailers like Whole Foods and Target, and they went international, entering the UK.
They were successful, growing, and at the forefront of a major protein boom that the market was about to see.
So, what exactly went wrong?
BetterBrand’s Disappearing Act
Heading into 2024, BetterBrand was absolutely crushing it. At least, that’s what we all saw from the outside.
After raising millions of dollars at a valuation of $170million, you might think that the company would be set for a while. But, in May of 2024, BetterBrand signed a loan agreement for $500,000 with JSD Management & Consulting.
5 short months later, BetterBrand still had not made a single interest payment, so JSD Management & Consulting sent a Notice of Default and Demand for Payment, which is a formal letter of demand for overdue payments.
This notice is typically the first step towards a resolution. In the case of The Better Bagel, it was the first step towards the implosion of the entire company.
JSD Management couldn’t get a hold of Aimee, the founder of BetterBrand, to collect what was owed to them. Not a single person on Earth seemed to know where Aimee was.
To make matters worse (and even stranger), the BetterBrand website was suddenly taken down, and the company stopped operating, leaving all active subscriptions and orders completely unfulfilled.
Naturally, customers, vendors, and investors had questions.
After a few days, the company attempted to provide answers… and it only made things stranger.
How NOT To Do Damage Control 101
BetterBrand put a post out on Instagram, seemingly trying to put everyone’s minds at ease. But much like everything else in this story, the way they went about it was really odd, to say the least.
In case their Instagram posts get taken down someday, here is what was written:
To our BetterBrand family - We wanted to take the time to address some of the recent noise you may have heard around the Company, in addition to the cause of the recent delay in your orders. This kind of information is not what we would typically share publicly, but - you are just as much a part of this journey as we are, and deserve our full transparency, authenticity, and partnership. After a thorough investigation, what we have recently confirmed, is that a handful of BetterBrand employees had been working with our online fulfillment partner to steal money and inventory from the Company. More recently, we found that what we thought to be a Shopify glitch, that caused the temporary shut down of the BetterBrand website this past week, was also the work of one of these employees. Although the matter is extremely serious, please rest assured that those employees have now been appropriately terminated. Additional controls have been put into place, and the Company is back to full health and operations, producing the great BetterBrand products you've come to know and love. We recognize that the process of investigation did cause delays in order shipment, for which we both apologize, and thank you for your patience, understanding, and support. Although this has certainly been a trying time for our team, we are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support, encouragement, and care demonstrated by our BetterBrand community, and are looking forward to stepping into the next, even Better, chapter - together. As always, Team Better
In short, BetterBrand claimed that employees were conspiring with their fulfillment partner to steal money and inventory, and that these employees also shut down the website for those few days.
BetterBrand attempted to put everyone’s minds at ease by sharing that these bad eggs were fired, and everything was now back to normal.
If you go through the comments on their post, they were met with nothing but praise for their transparency and bravery through such trying times.
In fact, they made another Instagram post showing off how thankful everybody was for them.
If the story they were telling was truthful and they came out the other side with long-term success, then I wouldn’t blame them for sharing all of this.
But you know this story doesn’t have such a happy ending.
BetterBrand took to social media once again to overshare, except this post has since been taken down. But thanks to Snaxshot, we still have a screenshot of one portion:
After doing what they called a “thorough investigation” into the matter, the company was apparently working with a new fulfillment partner, Cold Chain 3PL, and went as far as to publicly provide the names and emails of the co-owners.
BetterBrand’s post also said the company had sent one million dollars’ worth of inventory to Cold Chain’s processing centers in California, Illinois, and Maryland.
After seeing this Instagram post, Nosh reached out to Aimee Yang for a comment about the company shutting down, and her exact quote was: “No truth to any of it…so strange haha.”
Yes, Aimee, it is very strange. Ha. Ha.
Nosh did some really great reporting on this when it first broke, and they reached out directly to Cold Chain 3PL (the new fulfillment partner) for comment. If you like spicy, now things get really spicy.
Straight from Judd Rosenberg, co-founder of Cold Chain 3PL:
“Unfortunately, the claims made by BetterBrand on social media are false. We are not fulfilling orders, and never agreed to do so, as the company has been on credit hold for 60+ days due to significant past due invoices”
Remember, this is all happening behind the scenes. To the outside world, BetterBrand was back to business as usual.
The website came back up, BetterBrand started posting on social media again, and new orders were being fulfilled, so it was as if nothing ever happened.
But there was no new fulfillment partner. The CEO was still in the wind. Interest was left unpaid.
According to Jamie Woodard, JSD Management even hired a private investigator to locate Aimee in February of 2025, but they came up empty.
And Then… Poof.
In April 2025, BetterBrand took to Instagram (that’s their move) to give customers an update that exciting new updates and improvements were coming.
After that, they went completely radio silent on social media, leaving customers wondering not only what these updates were, but if this company was still even operating.
Then, in June of 2025, the website was once again deactivated. This time for good.
It has now been a full year since BetterBrand abruptly shut down, and not only has the company not made a single statement, but the founder, Aimee Yang, is still missing.
To shut down the company with no warning (although you can’t say there weren’t plenty of red flags) is one thing, but to completely disappear without a trace is something straight out of Catch Me If You Can.
Like a Phoenix from the Ashes, A New Protein Bagel Emerges
The court eventually ruled that Aimee Yang’s failure to respond after all this time represents an admission of guilt, so I have to imagine she will remain in hiding forever.
In the meantime, the fulfillment partner that BetterBrand claimed to be working with, Cold Chain 3PL, was able to secure the brand’s inventory through the court to sell the remaining bagels to recover some of their losses.
In selling the inventory that was left, they discovered there was still a huge demand for the product, so they went to work coming up with a new (similar but unique) formula for protein bagels, and launched their own product called Fit Bagel.
They already had the infrastructure, supply chain knowledge, and production experience to move quickly, so they were able to bring this product to life without any friction.
Now, they claim to have created a new product completely from scratch, but they decided to use nearly identical branding. For consumers, it’s essentially the same product, and I suppose that was the goal.
Is that a smart move? Since you’re trying to capitalize on a demand left by a successful product, it’s a smart move in theory. But when the product in question has left so many customers in the dark, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want a brand-new identity.
I mean, when you view these products side-by-side, they look identical thanks to the minimalistic Apple-style branding.
According to The Dieline, as of April 2026, The Fit Bagel was working on updated branding to give the product its own identity. I’m writing this article in June, and there is still no new branding, so I suppose we will see.
Time will tell if the Fit Bagel finds success. They’re launching on the back of a defunct company, in what is now a very crowded protein market, so it certainly won’t be easy.
I’ll be watching to see how things unfold, because there are still a lot of questions left unanswered here.
The biggest one: Where in the world is Aimee Yang?
Maybe she’ll eventually re-emerge to star in the Netflix adaptation of this story. Maybe she’ll stay in hiding forever. Maybe she’ll change her name and launch The Even Betterer Bagel.
Who knew the world of protein bagels could be so captivating?
