The story

About a year and some more ago, we started testing our date and whey protein concentrate based bar. In March of this year we were almost sure that it was ready for the general public after we had tested it as a treat during a birthday party at the school of my son (without vitamins and minerals because of the kids).

Only recently we were sure it was ready for the general public.

In the meantime we already had prepared a date based vegan recipe, containing soy protein isolate and soy crispies as the protein base. 

After some extensive testing, we decided it was ready to be released around Christmas this year.

Flavors & Shape

The ingredients of the bars would suggest they taste like dates or tahini, however, the added ingredients spice the flavor up so much that it is possible to taste all kinds of flavors. 

We decided to produce 2 whey-based versions because Whey made it easier to form and hold the bars without adding things like syrup. 

Replacing the whey 1 on 1 with soy isolate in the plant-based bar made it too dry to consume. So we thought to increase the amount of protein by adding soy crisps.

We divided the bar into 8 equal parts so you can consume it in pieces of 50 kcal. We did this to fulfill the idea of having the possibility to break up your snack into small ‘chunks’ of food. In our experience, it is also ideal to consume a part of the bar as a snack and leave the rest for later (if you can stay away from it)

Origins

The inspiration for the chosen ingredients for this bar came from a scientific article called: “Preparation of a natural candy from dates”​. It is freely available to read here. Even though the recipe is completely different, the main ingredients do resemble each other. The process of ‘finalizing’ the candy is described as: ‘drying the candies in the Algerian sun’, is unfortunately also not possible here. 

However this woke up our interest to read more about these foods that are in use since written history. This is, for example, how we got on the idea to use the strong anti-oxidant sumac.

We also learnt about a professor called V.H.W. Dowson who researched the date tree in ‘Arabia’ in the previous century. He stated that the date fruit is so densely packed with nutrients (and vitamins and minerals), that combined with milk, a human could easily live on it. When we read this observation he made, we were sure we had to use dates  (and milk) in our meal bar. 

V.H.W. Dowson was probably a man that also had thought of the concept of living on ‘easy and healthy food’… A real meal-replacement kind of man… 

Production of the bars

Contrary to other meal replacement bars on the market, these bars are not produced in huge amounts to sit on shelves before they are sent to you. 

Depending on the demand, these bars will be produced in batches of 12 to 90 pieces, so we can offer you fresh bars. 

They taste best when they are fresh, but are also excellent after 12 months, even though they start drying out after a couple of months.

 

Pricing & Packaging of the bars

We provide the ‘cheapest’ meal replacement product. We do this even though we use good to excellent quality ingredients in our powdered meal replacements products.

However we are unfortunately not able to do this with our bars. Simply because we can not make these bars that cheap. To make it cheap, we would need to switch to other base ingredients, which would change the features of the bar.

That is why a single bar costs 3.50€. When you order 6 bars we package it into a box and will reduce the price per bar to 3.20€. When you buy 5 boxes (30 bars) the price reaches the bottom of 3.0€ per bar.

Startup discount in the last days of 2019

To give everyone the chance to try out the bars we produce, we will give a 10% discount when you decide to try it out (only valid for orders above 20€).

Use coupon code pmBarsIn2019 during checkout for a 10% discount on the bars total costs.

Further information about the bars

For details on the ingredients and nutritional values visit the shop.

There is also a short FAQ section. If you still have questions, feel free to write them down below as a comment or directly to me.