A Passion For Paleo

The caveman diet is becoming quite popular among traditional consumers, forcing expansion for brands such as Paleo Passion Foods, Greenwich, Conn. Food and drink products with a paleo certification have increased 56% over the previous year, based on data in Nielsen Product Insider and Label Insight. Such goods, which don’t include grains, milk, legumes or processed sugar, length the classes of pancake and baking mixes, soup, soup, ready-to-eat carrot and peanut butter.

“Wal-Mart is making a huge push in this area, as well as Kroger and CVS,” said Marty Sands, founder and chief executive officer of Paleo Passion Foods. “It’s not just Whole Foods pushing into free-from, clean label, gluten-free, paleo certified… The mass market is now moving into this world.”

Paleo Passion Foods was one of dozens of exhibitors containing paleo-friendly goods in Natural Products Expo West, held March 9-12 at Anaheim.

Formed in 2014, the company now offers two product lines. Paleo Passion Pops ice pops are made with such ingredients like sweet potato puree, flax seeds, chia seeds and ginger. Flavors contain apple crisp, strawberry, strawberry passion fruit, blueberry pomegranate, pineapple strawberry, orange mango and chocolate.

Last May, the business added a line of grainless granola clusters, highlighting seeds, nuts and fruit with some honey or maple syrup. The firm’s products are offered in approximately 2,000 shops with plans to expand over 4,000 shops by the end of the year.

“So many different people have their own interpretation of paleo,” Mr. Sands told Food Business News. “The way we interpret it is we are passionate about staying away from processed foods. We’re paleo-friendly in the pops and paleo certified in the grainless granola. But it’s not just about that. It’s about getting away from the processed foods and trying to avoid refined sugars.”

The brand started as a passion for Mr. Sands’ wife, Kim, a self-described “self-taught nutritionist” who develops the recipes for the company.

“My husband is extremely entrepreneurial, and I’m health conscious and nutrition oriented,” she said. “The one thing I’ve learned is the products have to taste good. It doesn’t matter how clean and great your ingredients are. If the product doesn’t taste good, they’re not eating it. I can’t tell you how many times we tried things and in the garbage it went.”

Long term, the organization intends to launch products in extra classifications, including nut butters and frozen meals, Mrs. Sands said.

“The whole natural foods and healthy way of living is really going mainstream, and so many of these big retailers are taking on these health initiatives,” Mrs. Sands said. “We have a serious problem with obesity in this country, and it’s nice to see there are food manufacturers trying to do something about it and that we’re not alone.”

A study from Hitwise, Los Angeles, shows internet searches related to paleo dieting may have peaked after experiencing a meteoric jump in 2016. But, tenets of the paleo diet, such as the avoidance of artificial ingredients and refined sweeteners, appear to be here to stay.

“The real movement, in our view, and what I see more and more is people are equating the word ‘paleo’ with non-processed foods,” Mr. Sands said. “Getting closer and closer to real foods is what we see the movement as all about.”

Snack Food Goals For Healthy Twist

Maintaining your health when you have a sweet tooth is not always simple. However, Marty Sands believes that he’s discovered a way: by starting his own organic snack food manufacturing company.

Marty Sands and his wife, Kim, established their firm, Paleo Passion Foods, 2 years  back in a bid to create more delicious and healthy food selections for customers. The Greenwich residents began with Paleo Passion Pops, a lineup of all-natural, unrefined popsicles with no added sugars, no preservatives and no added colors. The pops truly are all-natural and exclude human-modified or chemical ingredients like GMOs, artificial flavors and extra sugar, like the dangerous high fructose corn syrup. The business has grown to incorporate Krave the Krunch, a trio of organic grainless granola.

Granola has turned into one of the fastest-growing goods in the nation. The power couple chose to capitalize on the trend using a healthy twist. Contrary to other granola goods, their products comprises of ingredients such as nuts, fruit, seeds, cinnamon, honey, coconut and maple syrup. As stated by Marty Sands, various kinds of granola in the market include ingredients such as oats and grains.

“The new trend is a grainless granola — taking out the processed foods and truly getting down to what real food is,” he explained.

People today eat granola only because they believe that it’s healthy, Marty Sands added that the customers do not always know what they are consuming. He compared the ordinary granola bar to a Milky Way, attributing its “candy-like” nature to its own processed ingredients and extra sugar. But with Krave the Krunch, people are aware of what they’re putting in their bodies, he said.

The product has seen a rapid growth over the years and Sandy attributes it to a customer demand for snacks with much more healthy, clean ingredients.

Granola that is baked in clusters, is significantly a lot easier to eat than other granolas. According to Sands, consumers can simply pick a piece and eat it, instead of sticking their hands into a bag of loose components. At the moment, the granola comes in 3 flavors: choco-nuts, Caribbean coconut and walnut cinnamon. His group has spent 10 months creating this all-natural granola. The process included a series of focus groups, evaluation tasting and recipe adjustments.

“We tried to get as many people to try it as possible,” Kim Sands explained. “(We) used individuals who do not typically gravitate towards healthful foods, to see whether they enjoy that, in addition to people in the market, like grocery store managers”

Similar to their ice pops, Marty Sands expects the granola to aid the attempts to fight the epidemics of diabetes and obesity in the United States. As stated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity is now common, serious and expensive, with over 78.6 million of U.S. adults classified as overweight. As the rate of obesity increases so does the speed of obesity-related ailments such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and some kinds of cancer..

“It’s a huge negative tendency; a true problem,” Marty said. “Our food supply is in very bad condition.” When they started the company, their goal was to not contribute towards the growing diabetes and obesity epidemic. Their mantra back then, “Evolve The Way You Eat,” continues to be their focus.

“There are not any processed foods of any type in any of our foods,” he said. “No processed sugars of any kind added to our meals. Our meals are non-GMO and comprise nothing artificial, such as additive or dyes.”

Since its launching in January 2014, Paleo Passion Foods has grown substantially, with their first solution, the organic ice pops, gaining traction in over 700 stores nationwide, in health-focused chains such as Whole Foods and more regional grocers such as Shop Rite.

“There’s an extremely fast growing trend now, of grocery shoppers studying the label, specifically the nutritional label and ingredient list,” he added. “Our label does not contain ingredients you’d only understand from chemistry class.”