When it comes to innovative, better-for-you snacks, Grain Zero is paving the way with its unique approach to crafting honey-sweetened products. Founded on the belief that delicious and nutritious can go hand in hand, Grain Zero has captured the attention of snack enthusiasts and health-conscious consumers alike. In this exclusive interview, the National Honey Board spoke with founder Steven Bager to learn more about the inspiration behind Grain Zero, the use of honey as a natural sweetener, and how Grain Zero is redefining snacking with sustainability and nutrition in mind. Read on to discover the story behind the brand and how honey plays a starring role in its success.
You’ve been using honey as your go-to sweetener for more than 20 years. What’s the secret to longevity - even through a rebrand?
The origins of the recipes upon which Grain Zero was founded (the original brand was Grain-Free JK Gourmet) used honey as the sole sweetener. Most of our granola flavors and all our bars exclusively use honey to complement the nuts, seeds and nature-sweetened fruit that go into the formulations. We deliberately avoided using anything else to sweeten our products: no refined sugars, no artificial sweeteners, no cane sugars, no molasses. Honey was the only approved sweetener for those who followed the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), and we were known for a product line that was geared to digestive health (Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Crohn’s disease, celiac disease, ulcerative colitis). We became well-known in the SCD community throughout Canada and the U.S. as a trusted brand and resource because we were ‘safe’ to eat for those who strictly followed the SCD: all grain-free and exclusively honey to sweeten.
How does honey contribute to the overall flavor profile of your products?
Honey provides a smooth, subtle sweetness. A little goes a long way, as we discovered. It also serves as a natural preservative.
We know that working with honey can sometimes be a sticky business! Can you share any challenges your R&D team faced when formulating with honey and how they solved them?
For us, it was just a matter of determining the right level of sweetness for the various products and at what stage in the manufacturing process should we introduce the honey. We found honey to be quite versatile. In a recipe with something tart, like cranberries, the honey was a perfect complement. I can’t go into detail on how we formulated our products (trade secrets 😉), but needless to say, the finished product was absolutely delicious and so satisfying to so many.
How do you think using honey enhances the nutritional value and functionality of your products beyond sweetness?
Honey’s properties enhance the product far more than sugar would—practically and emotionally—in our opinion. As mentioned, it does serve as a natural preservative. For a product like ours that doesn’t use anything processed and without preservatives, honey provides that added benefit. We shy away from processed ingredients, relying instead on what nature provides us. All our products can be frozen, then thawed—and the honey performs well, regardless of the texture of the product when being consumed.
Are there specific varietals of honey that work best for your formulations?
We generally use clover honey. In our Grain Zero production, we strive for flavor consistency with every batch we make throughout the year; other honey varietals may influence the taste of the final product we’re manufacturing.
Any feedback from customers about the use of honey in your products? Has that changed over time?
Honey has been well-received since Day 1 when we launched our first products over 20 years ago. No one on the market at that time had anything close to ours, and many newer competitive products may have used honey, but often in combination with other sweeteners. For us, as a premium quality line using premium ingredients without any ‘fillers’ (that add little nutritionally but take up a lot of space in a package), honey simply made sense. However, the driving force was always about digestive health and great taste, and our desire to offer a safe, gut-healthy line of products for those who really needed to eliminate the ‘bad stuff’ from their diet.
Our community grew and grew over all those years to include not only those who NEEDED to eat a certain way, but also those who wished to indulge in something delicious. For the latter, the fact that our products were gluten-free and grain-free was just a bonus claim.
How does the use of honey align with Grain Zero’s commitment to eco-friendly, sustainable, clean label and natural ingredients?
The use of honey is fundamental to most everything we manufacture. For several years now, and to this day, we've been seeing industry forecasts and trend reports that consumers are looking more and more for healthier, less-processed ingredients and overall better-for-you foods. Well, that frankly, feeds right into our ‘sweet spot’ (pun intended), as it’s consistent with the message we’ve been promoting for over two decades. We were well ahead of the market when we got started, but we were not chasing any trends with what some people might suggest was a great idea. We had a simple objective of supplying gut-healthy, delicious-tasting, honey-sweetened products that the entire family could enjoy (not only those who needed to eat a certain way). Long live the bees!
What’s your best-selling product that has honey?
Our Grain Zero Granola Cereals and Bars are ALL great products. Many people identify us as a granola company, but I guess it depends on which category of products someone came to Grain Zero for (or JK Gourmet before that) in the first place. People love our Grain Zero Granola, served with milk or mixed with yogurt, or as a trail mix, or as a salad topper. Our line of Grain Zero Granola Bars (made with only three or four ingredients) are considered by many to be the absolute best bar ever! Made simply with almond butter and honey as a sweetener, these can easily become quite addictive—in a very healthy way. I’m certainly hooked.
Visit www.GrainZero.com and @GrainZeroFoods for exciting news, seasonal specials and to engage with Grain Zero’s growing community of fans.