Very often the topics of my odd food or drink posts are unfamiliar to me--not just the manufacturer, but the type of food or drink itself. This is not of those instances. As I've surely mentioned before, in my decades in the outdoors as a field archaeologist I ate thousands of granola-type bars for my lunches, and frequently also for breakfasts, too. They were perfect. Portable, tasty, and with enough energy and sometimes electrolytes to enable me to complete a hard day's work. So if I'm not an expert on granola-type bars, I'm at least a highly educated consumer. Today's bars came from the Made Good brand, out of Ontario, Canada. Specifically their chocolate drizzled birthday cake kind, and their mixed berry one.
Made Good is just one of the product lines from Riverside Natural Foods, Inc. Riverside is yet another example of a company that holds back quite a bit of background information about the company's history, and its founders on their official website. Therefore, I had to consult other online sources to find out basic information such as the founders' surnames, and the start date. Anyway, Riverside began in 2013, when siblings Nima, Salma, and Sahba Fotovat joined together to make a healthy, allergen-free food company. Their inspiration is listed as being the frustrating lack of allergen-free products available when Nima's son was first going to school. (Evidently he had/has food allergies.) Food manufacturing wasn't unusual to the Fotovats, since their father had run his own company of this sort previously, after immigrating to Canada. (An article by a person claiming to be a friend of Sahba's said the Fotovats immigrated from Iran, in 1988, and that their father was Moe, which I'm guessing is a nickname.) Currently Nima is the company president, Salma is the sourcing and procurement director, and Sahba is director of operations. Aside from Made Good, the other Riverside lines are the Good to Go one (which has snack foods), and Cookie Pal (which is pet treats). The Made Good foods avoid using peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, gluten, soy, dairy, eggs, sesame, fish, and shellfish, which evidently are the most common food allergens. Made Good's wares are also organic, certified vegan, kosher, and free of GMOs. Riverside claims that its facility is the only organic and allergen-free one in all of Canada, as well. Additionally, Riverside proudly touts its B Corporation status, which is likened to a Fair Trade designation. Other than granola bars, the Made Good line includes granola minis, cookies, crackers, crispy squares, and light granola. I also saw they sometimes use agave as a sweetener--see my post on September 13, 2015 for more information on that substance. As of now, Made Good products are sold across Canada and the U.S.
Made Good mixed berry granola bar: These were smallish bars, being about 3.5 inches by 1 inch by 5/8 of an inch (or about 9 cm. by 2.5 cm. by 1.5 cm.), with visible grains and fruit chunks pressed into it. The texture was a little sticky. The taste was rather bland and boring. Not as good as the average granola bars I've had. I suspect the lack of sugar probably was the main culprit. Not terrible or anything, just disappointing.
Made Good chocolate drizzled birthday cake granola bar. Same size and shape as the mixed berry one. It looked different, though. This one had tiny red, blue, and purple circles pressed into the grains, with streaks and stripes of chocolate overtop. Pleasant chocolate-y odor. Better than the berry kind, the chocolate certainly helps. I guess (?) it had a cake-like flavor. Still not great. Kind of okay to good.
In conclusion, then, I thought the mixed berry bar was forgettable, and the chocolate drizzled birthday cake one was mediocre at best. Maybe some of the other flavors are better. So I guess if you suffer from severe food allergies these might be an acceptable alternative, but if you don't, I'd stick with the regular, allergen-containing, tastier granola-type bars like those made by Nature Valley, Quaker Oats, Clif Bars, etc. I feel oddly guilty about admitting this, however, since the folks at Riverside seem to have their hearts in the right place, seem to really care about health, allergies, the environment, and social issues. But the reality is that common food allergens make for flavorful edibles. If you're fortunate enough to not have these medical conditions, why settle for something inferior?
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