Cranking it up

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/09/2017 (3160 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

To be a big-league defenceman, you have to eat like a big-league defenceman.

Cheryl Zealand is the founder of Cranked Energy, a business that markets freshly made, preservative-free energy bars. In 2015, when her venture was still getting off the ground, Zealand handed out free bars to the training staff at Focus Fitness at the Bell MTS Iceplex. In turn, they distributed the bars to their clientele, including members of the Manitoba Moose.

A few days later, Moose rearguard Josh Morrissey, who now patrols the blueline for the Winnipeg Jets, sent Zealand an email telling her how much he enjoyed her bars. Better still, the Jets’ former first-round draft pick placed an order for 100 more.

“Since then, Josh has gotten in touch with me whenever he gets back to Winnipeg for the start of training camp, as well as when he runs out (of bars) during the season,” says Zealand, seated in her retail site at 1853 Portage Ave., where several customers have just purchased a dozen assorted bars for their morning meeting, the same way others scoop up a box of doughnuts or muffins on their way to work.

Prior to her April grand opening, Zealand spent a lot of time explaining the concept of energy bars that go in the refrigerator, not the pantry, to potential merchants. (Besides the Portage Avenue store, Zealand’s bars, which come in 10 varieties, including two gluten-free options, are available in almost 20 Winnipeg locations, as well as outlets in Brandon, Saskatoon and Calgary.)

Because her bars have a limited shelf-life of six weeks in the fridge or 12 weeks in the freezer, retailers weren’t sure they wanted to carry a product that could potentially go bad, she says.

“I told them I understood where they were coming from, but that I firmly believed health-minded people are looking for fresh snack alternatives that aren’t always yogurt or pieces of fruit. I said for sure there would be some education involved, since people aren’t used to seeing energy bars in this format. But as soon as I started reading off some of the ingredients in some of the other bars they were already selling — all these things I could barely pronounce — that usually convinced them.”

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In December 2009, Zealand and her husband were the proud parents of newborn twin boys, Luke and Kyle. Their eldest son, Cole, had just turned five, so one can imagine what their mornings were like, trying to get Cole ready for kindergarten, while attending to the babies’ needs at the same time.

“The hardest part was remembering to eat myself,” Zealand says. “I’d wonder why I was getting hunger pangs walking Cole to school then remember, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been up since 5:30 (a.m.) and I haven’t had a bite, yet.’”

Looking for something nutritious and filling she could eat on the go, the self-confessed “fitness nut,” who has appeared in the pages of Inside Fitness and Oxygen magazines, picked up some commercially produced energy bars from a health store. Not only didn’t they satisfy her appetite, she also suffered “a bit of a reaction… an upset stomach and touch of nausea” after consuming them, she says.

“Plus, plain and simple, they didn’t taste good.”

Although she’d always fancied herself an average baker, at best, Zealand wondered how tough it would be to make her own bars, minus all the preservatives. In January 2010, she began tinkering around in her kitchen, mixing protein powder with everyday items such as peanut butter and oatmeal. Zealand laughs when a scribe remarks, “Let me guess; they were great, right?”

“My God, no, they were awful… so bad.”

Not one to quit, Zealand, a chartered accountant in her “real life,” remained committed to getting her bars right, even when she was dumping out batch after batch because the flavour or consistency wasn’t to her specifications. Finally, in 2014, after three years of experimenting, she made a breakthrough.

One Sunday morning, she prepared a batch of peanut butter-coconut bars, which she placed in the fridge, in a Pyrex dish. Her husband, who usually turned his nose up at her finished products, took one with him for lunch the following morning… and the morning after that, and the morning after that. By Friday, when he still hadn’t broached the topic, Zealand stopped him in his tracks and said, “You’ve been taking my bars to work all week without saying a word. I need to know: are they good or not?”

To which he replied, “I have to say, this time I think you nailed it.”

At first, Zealand was content to hand out her bars to family and friends, free of charge. But after more and more people began contacting her on Facebook, asking where they could get some, too, she decided maybe it was time to “go legit.”

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Obby Khan admits to eating his fair share of energy bars when he was a stand-out offensive lineman for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. In 2014, a couple of years after Khan retired from the gridiron and around the time he opened Green Carrot Juice Company in Osborne Village, he tried one of Zealand’s bars for the first time, at a charity golf tournament.

“She came up to me and delivered this really strong sales pitch, about how her bars were different than anything I would have tried before,’ says Khan, who also owns the Exchange District restaurant Shawarma Khan. “I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll try one,’ but I can’t even remember if I finished it or not.”

About a month later, Zealand, who was still working out of a commercial kitchen at the time, showed up at Green Carrot unannounced, to ask the 2008 Ed Kotowich Good Guy Award-winner if he would be willing to sell her bars, on an ongoing basis.

“She gave me another one and after taking one bite, it was like love at second sight,” Khan says. “I remember going, ‘Wow, these are so good. We absolutely have to have these in our store.’”

Khan, whose favourite flavour is salted caramel-pecan-pretzel, says Zealand’s bars are a perfect complement to Green Carrot’s cold-pressed juices, which must also be stored in the fridge.

“I start every single morning with a bar, and usually have another by mid-afternoon,” he says. “Unlike the dry, pasty, gross (bars) I ate when I was a football player, Cheryl’s have a thick, hearty, satisfying flavour. You really feel like you’re eating this gourmet chocolate bar.”

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This weekend, Zealand is attending a retailer trade show in Las Vegas. The No. 1 item on her shopping list is a packaging machine that will allow her to increase her production to 30,000 protein bars a month from 10,000 — a number that boggles her mind considering 18 months ago, she was standing in the aisle at Bulk Barn, debating whether to buy a 10-kilogram tub of peanut butter because she wasn’t convinced she’d use it all. (Get this: last week, Zealand purchased 290 of those same 10-kilogram containers, which she figures will last her approximately three months.)

“The other thing we’re constantly working on is new flavours,” she says. “We’ve just come out with a pumpkin-spice bar for the fall season, and I’m also thinking about doing something with activated charcoal.” (Ha ha, it sounded like you said you’re making an energy bar out of charcoal.)

“That’s right. I was in New York last month doing some research and it’s a hot ingredient, no pun intended. People are brushing their teeth with it… it’s a really good detox, apparently.”

Zealand admits it’s a feather in her cap to count Morrissey and Bailey Bram, the Ste. Anne’s forward who has played for Canada’s women’s national hockey team, among her regular customers. However, she says it is people, such as a woman she heard from last week, who convince her Cranked Energy — a tag she came up with one morning after imploring her three dreary-eyed children to “crank it up a notch” — is on the right path.

“She told me she is diabetic and that she’s always had trouble with her blood sugar spiking all over the place. But that after eating one of my bars, it had totally stabilized,” Zealand says. “So yeah, having a NHL player like Josh tell me he shares his bars in the dressing room is obviously great, but to be able to help somebody live a better life? That’s so much more amazing.”

For more information, go to www.crankedenergy.ca.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca