When you hear the word Paleo, what comes to mind? I envision a pre-historic people hunting and gathering their own food. The modern sense of the word isn’t far off, as the Paleo diet has become a popular nutrition plan based around eating foods that fueled humankind for millennia.
Local company, Paleo Eats, uses this premise in their product, the Cro Bar. Created from the desire to mitigate health issues in her own family, Owner Debbie Fred found her products could serve a wider market, and thus began her journey as a business owner.
Fred started Paleo Eats in 2012, but the origin story began a few years earlier. While breastfeeding she discovered her daughter was allergic to dairy. She cut dairy products out her diet and solved that issue, but her newborn son was born two years later showing signs of painful food allergies. “He was suffering from gluten intolerance, and it became clear that we needed to move beyond a typical American diet and eat clean, easy-to-digest foods,” she explained.
“I began by baking delectable dairy- and gluten-free treats for my family. As more people learned about the benefits of Paleo and tasted my delicious, nutritious treats, I started offering specialty baked goods to the public.”
A Paleo diet involves eating meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds while avoiding high-carbohydrate, low-nutrient, highly-processed foods. The latter foods have been linked to new epidemic levels of degenerative diseases such as obesity, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, depression and infertility.
“In addition to making Paleo goodies, I want to educate people about Paleo,” Fred explained. “After years of working as a MRI Tech I saw a lot of drug-happy physicians. While making conversation with patients I would ask about their diet and if they had gotten any dietary recommendations, but diet wasn’t talked about.” Because Fred and her family were so intimately effected by food intolerances, she hopes to ease other’s dietary suffering.
Paleo Eats products have been off the shelves for about a year for some recipe modifications and to find a baker that could abide by the strict dietary restrictions required for the Cro Bar. “Finding someone to make my bar was the most challenging,” she said. “It had to be a dedicated gluten free facility. I went to a facility in Vancouver which changed $650 to trial the bar, and I left with nothing but a big bill. I learned the hard way.”
Her previous bar (Evo) had to be refrigerated, so finding a solution that could be shelf ready was important. She had some success at the Food Innovation Center in Portland where she learned to use the slab technique in the production, a process that would help the bar stay together better without refrigeration. And she finally found L!V Foods out of Salem, Oregon, that could manufacture the bars to
her standards.
The Cro Bar is made almost entirely from organic ingredients and contains no GMOs, gluten, dairy, soy, legume, wheat, processed sugar or preservatives. It does contain organic coconut, almonds, raw honey, organic extra virgin coconut oil, chocolate, organic dates, organic sunflower seeds (raw, shelled), organic raw cacao powder, milled organic flax seed, organic maple syrup, organic vanilla extract, pure almond extract and himalayan pink sea salt.
“I’m looking forward to getting back into my old accounts, making new connections, and letting people know Paleo Eats is back!” Fred said.
Look for the Cro Bar around Central Oregon at over 20 locations, and available online at Wild Mountain Paleo Market. 541-815-8908, debbie@paleoeats.com
Paleo Eats
www.paleoeats.com
CEO: Debbie Fred
No. Employees: 1
Year Established: 2012
Product/Service: Cro Bar
Hot News: Products back in stores after a year, all new Cro Bar replaced Evo Bar, longer shelf life.
Outlook for Growth: Bars are being sold all over the country with interest from overseas markets.
