As I roll my cart down the aisle of Whole Foods, I get a twinge of guilt every time something processed and non-local hits the metal grid of the cart bottom. I’m doing my best, but sometimes you need something, well, quick. In our anything but slow lives, Slow Food is not always an option, even if you want it to be.
Now, thanks to Harvest Lark, my grab-and-go snack moments can be local, too. Their products, Harvest Lark Cereal Bars and Lark Mix, were created in owner Cheryl Zumbrunn’s kitchen as a healthy snack for her hard-working farm family.
“I'm a farm-wife and a mother, and wanted to bring the wholesome whole grain goodness of what we raise on our grain farm to others. So we built a small production kitchen on our farm, employ local women and are trying to share our fresh bakery product with others.”
The ingredient list reads more like a real recipe instead of a science experiment, and it contains several ingredients sourced locally to Zumbrunn’s farm in Chapman, KS, just 110 miles from Kansas City. Local ingredient make up one-quarter of the bars content and include; hard red winter wheat, hard white wheat, honey, and pecans.
The farm practices sustainable agriculture, says Zumbrunn. “No-till, water and soil conservation practices, management of livestock and crops to ensure a healthy product from a healthy environment for healthy people.”
“We are a family farm that has come from generations of farmers, and we recognize the importance of innovative ideas from our farm products that will allow us to continue farming into the next decade. Yet our family traditions are constant: Respect for the land and it's gifts, respect for our neighbors, respect for our talents, and respect for excellence and the gifts to perform it...these make up Harvest Lark Company's Core Values.”
While Zumbrunn’s kitchen has had to be replaced with a production kitchen, Harvest Lark products are still made on-site at the farm. The other things that have changed is the recipe for the bars which will change to replace corn syrup with brown rice syrup, and the product line has expanded.
The bars come in six flavors; Coco-Espresso, Cranberry Pecan, Raisin Currant, Peanut Butter, Ginger Date, and Chocolate Chip. A box of 8, 1.76 oz.each, costs $8.99.
The Lark Mix, a blend of the bar “trimmings” plus nuts and dried fruit, currently comes in one flavor only. An 8.25 oz. Bag costs $4.99. Six flavors of Lark Mix will be introduced in May of 2007.
Harvest Lark products are available at Dean and Deluca and To Your Healthy KS in Gardner, and soon, at Whole Foods in Overland Park. You can also purchase the products from the Harvest Lark web site: www.harvestlark.com.
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