Western Grocer Serving the industry since 1916
BC brands presented new products at the eighth annual From the Ground Up trade show in Vancouver
by Ronda Payne
New food and beverage producers know how difficult it is to get time in front of retail buyers. Even existing brands, already on shelves, can struggle with gaining attention for new product lines. But, From the Ground Up, an annual BC-product only trade show style showcase, brings local food and beverage processors face-to-face with multi-market channel buyers and industry experts.
Nearly 70 businesses came from all corners of BC to put themselves in the spotlight. Among the attendees, 47 of them were new to the show and of those, 24 were part of the new Sprout Street aisle specific to pre-distribution brands that are new to the market.
Clean and fruity in a smoothy
Besee Crunch (pronounced BC for the province it was founded in) is Ravjeet Sidhu’s answer to getting more fruit into her fussy eaters at home.
“My kids. Especially my little one. She’s a picky eater,” she says.
Her Berry Bright, Tropical Fusion and Strawberry Banana flavour smoothie mixes have been at farmers’ markets and consumer shows, but she had not had the opportunity to meet people in retail until she was on Sprout Street at From the Ground Up.
Sidhu promotes the flexibility of her product. As a blended powder, the clean label mixes can be made to taste for a more intense fruit experience or something milder. And those like her and her kids can adjust the amount of ice to perfect the temperature for their preference.
The Berry Bright flavour contains whey isolate and the Strawberry Banana includes reishi mushroom. She also has five different freeze-dried fruit snacks.
“The smoothie mix idea came first,” she says of her product lines. “But that took time to perfect the recipes.”
A modern twist on pemmican
David Allard had seen enough ultra-processed, overly sweet, tasteless snack bars claiming to be healthy. Now, through Metis-led CarneBar, he’s sharing a protein bar with beef, fruit, nuts and flax that offers 12 grams of protein per bar.
“There’s nothing like this out there,” he says. “Pemmican inspires us a little bit.”
The five flavours: Cherry BBQ, Mango Chili Lime, Pecan Peach, Pineapple Ginger and Thai Coconut Curry are not the average protein bar with their savoury-forward flavour profile and unique flavour combinations that pull out the best of the ingredients.
“It’s BC beef that we use,” Allard says. “Then we combine it with the fruits and nuts we use into a bar. It’s all made in Salmon Arm.”
The majority Indigenous-owned company launched the bars just two weeks before the show. Coming from a background of food and forestry, he says he returned to his first love of food with the creation of CarneBar.
Students take a tea break
Boiling water may not seem like a significant task, but when there’s no access to a kettle and someone want a cup of tea, it sure can be. The lack of a kettle isn’t the only reason for the introduction of Instea by founders and SFU students Romina Khaksar and Brandon Kim. They developed their instant tea products about a year ago in SFU’s incubator program.
“We were trying to solve the gap of premium quality tea, but in an instant format,” says Khaksar. “It’s great for travelling or camping. It’s convenience.”
Instea is simply straight tea. No added sugars or milks like other instant products on the market. The tea crystals dissolve in hot or cold water making it easy to adjust the strength of the blend and are available in single-serving packages or tins.
“It’s not like matcha, you don’t have to whisk it,” she says.
Multiple flavours, including black, green and others, have already been created for Instea’s official arrival through wholesale channels.
Kid baking minimalism
The thought of baking with kids conjures up images of flour in everyone’s hair, the family dog licking up an egg smashed on the floor and the smoke detector going off in a smoke-filled kitchen. Sarah Cullinan of Easy Peasy knew there was be a better way to get kids in the kitchen and mess-free, home-baked, healthy, packaging-free snacks into young tummies.
Her three flavours of granola bar (or ball – it’s up to the maker to decide) mixes need only a seed or nut butter and a binder like honey, maple syrup or mashed banana to create a finished product. No excessive ingredients and no baking. Mix, form, chill and eat.
“It’s getting kids in the kitchen and getting them a snack,” says Cullinan. “And I wanted to reduce the amount of packaging in their lunchbox. We call it a snacktivity.”
Chocochomp features vegan chocolate chips; Polar Berry brings freeze-dried strawberries and coconut to the blend and Moose Munchies is an explosion of dried cranberries and pumpkin seeds.
