Manitoba-made energy bars busting out of Niverville farm

The Winnipeg Jets are gettingfuelled by energy bars that arebeing cooked up inside a farm basement in Niverville, Man.

Someone got it in to their hands and then the Winnipeg Jets just started ordering, said Colleen Dyck.

So they are using the bars and Ill happily take credit for their past three wins.

GORP energy bars are the brainchild of Dyck, who along with herhusband Grant, have been developing three tasty, filling and super healthy bars from theirfarm.

Dyck developed the bars back in 2005 as a way to take in clean calories as she trained to be atriathlete.

I was bringing them to run practices and swim practices and then my training mates were like, Giveme some bars, she said.

They were demanding that I bring them so I thought maybe there issomething here.

The bars arehandmade by Dyckand 10or so localemployees whoroll outthe three unique mixtures with rolling pins.

It is a painstaking process, but one that ensures the textureof the bars is up to herstandards.

It took almost seven years of research and development including the pricey and painstaking shelf-lifetesting thatfood products must go through for approval before the bars were ready for market.

We didnt want to add preservatives, so we had to reformulate a couple of times to get the perfect ratiothat would last a good six months, explainedDyck.

I know there are certain bars you can have in your gymbag for a year, and the best before date is still good. Well, I didnt want to eat something that is a yearold,and I dont think other people want to,either.

GORP bars are made from ingredients that follow the philosophy of local first, then organic.

Localingredients include Manitoba-grown oats, sunflower seeds, hemp, flax and the Dycks'own honey,which comes directly from beehives thatpollinate the canola fields behind their house.

There are also some more exotic ingredients such aspea fibre, coconut, green coffee bean extractandsprouted brown rice protein, which makes for a balanced mix of sweet and savoury.

The companycurrently runs two production days per week, making between 2,800 and 5,000 bars, in the basement of the Dycks'farmhouse.

Theysupply 40Manitobastores as well as a handful of gyms and health food stores across thecountry.

Being an artisanal product, the barsdo carry a bit heavier of a price tag,but thathasn'tscared off customers.

Most of the businesshasbeen through word of mouth, with businesses calling regularly after having had customersdemand they start carrying the bars.

The company is small, with only two full-time employees aside from Dyck, buttheir most recentorder might just change all that.

We just recently got the go-ahead with Mountain Equipment Co-op to go national in January, she said. So that is a really big, big, big deal for us.