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Kitchenware News & Housewares Review Show Daily 7 3 Tuesday, March 17, 2020 she could feel conscientious about giving them and that they'd enjoy too. She start- ed with an oatmeal cookie that her kids enjoyed and went to work on the recipe to come up with a product that was a bit more oat and a little less cookie but still delicious. Her kids loved it. Their friends loved it. "My kids really liked it, and that's the beauty of children – that they'll be hon- est," said Teresa Humrichouser, that Ashland, Ohio, mom. "We are a choco- late family, so I knew that if I put choco- late in it, there was a pretty good chance they would eat it." It was a bonus that she could take it along in her mom-van, and the kids could nibble on it during their rides without leaving behind a mess of crumbs in the car. "Our lives are so busy, so, as a mom, I can have this in my mini- van as I pick the kids up from practice," she said. Humrichouser's friends encouraged her to take her Granola Cookie Crunch to the local farmers market, where, every weekend for two years straight, she sold out. Local grocery retailers saw what was happening, and a few of them approached her and asked her if they could carry her product in their stores after the farmers market season had ended. Humrichouser started looking for a commercial kitchen. She found a 350 square-foot facility that had been vacated by a pizza kitchen. "It was a few minutes from our house, and it was a small kitchen that we could move into and get it licensed because it had been used for food service in the past," she said. Three years later, she moved out of the former pizza shop and into a 1,000 square-foot facility. Then in January, 2017, she moved into a 7,500 square- foot bakery, where eight employees make small batch after small batch of her Granola Cookie Crunch in four year-round flavors as well as occasional seasonal flavors. "With this move, it has allowed us to be in a location that suited us for bringing on larger cus- tomers," she said. The move has also Crazy Monkey (Cont'd. from p. 1) facilitated supplier audits and food safety planning and documentation to qualify for national distribution to gro- cers who sell the products in either the granola, healthy snack or cookie sec- tions of their shelves. Crazy Monkey Baking is also certi- fied as a woman-owned business, and Humrichouser offers contract manufac- turing services to other companies that have a granola formula but not a facility. "Even after all this time, baking is still my greatest passion," she said. "I don't get to do it that often any more, that that's what I love working with most in the business." Crazy Monkey Baking is now offered in Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip and Dark Chocolate Chip, Mint Chocolate Chip and Cranberry Almond flavors in 1.25-ounce bags that are smart- snack approved for schools. They retail for 99 cents to $1.49. Those four flavors plus White Chocolate Cranberry are also offered in 7.5-ounce bags along with a rotation of seasonal flavors that includes Cinnamon Pecan in the winter, Lemon Coconut in summer and Pumpkin Seed & Spice in the fall. Additional special- edition flavors also appear occasional- ly. "We have a variety of flavors, so there's some variety to appeal to the kids and adults alike," Humrichouser said. All of the products are wheat free and made with 100 percent whole grains. Oats are naturally gluten free, and the products are sweetened with honey, molasses and evaporated cane sugar. A serving of the Dark Chocolate Chip fla- vor Granola Cookie Crunch contains 8 grams of added sugars and 6 grams of fat along with 3 grams of protein and 150 calories. "There is fat in oats and in whole grain cornmeal and in flax seeds, but it's all healthy fat," Humrichouser said. "When you have the real ingredi- ents without the fats stripped from them, you're going to get those good, healthy calories in the fat." For more information, visit www.crazy monkeybaking.com. Wild Planet Foods Releases Tuna in Glass Jars Wild Planet Foods, the leading provider of sustainable seafood, is expanding its line of ultra-premium wild tuna with the release of its new Skipjack Wild Tuna in Pure Olive Oil and Petite Tonno Wild Tuna in Pure Olive Oil. This is the company's first- ever Petite Tonno offering. Hand-packed in pure olive oil, these solid fillets of tuna can be served atop salad, in a favorite pasta dish or in a sand- wich for a flavor-packed treat. At 170 calories per 3-ounce serving for the Petite Tonno and 200 calories per 3-ounce serv- ing for the Skipjack, these nutrient-rich items feature 22 grams and 20 grams of protein respectively. Both new products are gluten free and certified by the Non-GMO Project as well. The Skipjack Wild Tuna is sus- tainably pole and line caught near Cape Verde, and the Petite Tonno Wild Tuna is sourced in the same region by purse seine fishing vessels that do not use FADs (Fish Aggregating Devices). Both of these methods are in line with the best practices for sustainabil- ity recommended by a con- sensus of environmental groups, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program. Both products are avail- able in 6.7-ounce glass jars with 1.5 serv- ings per jar (drained). Each has a sug- gested retail price of $6.99. Hitting the Road from Hickey Bottom By Lorrie Baumann Rebecca McCrea has spent most of the last half of this year running her Hickey Bottom Barbecue Company from the road. Starting on May 18 from her home in Butler, Pennsylvania, she's walked more than 2,600 miles across the country to Los Angeles, California, to raise money for the Best Friends Animal Society. Along the way, she ran Hickey Bottom Barbecue Company from road- side motel rooms and her cell phone with some help from friends back home and a sister who pitched in to pay her house- hold bills and mow her lawn. "I have my cell phone in my hand all the time," she said from a few days' hike from Los Angeles. "I have people helping me out here and there who know a little bit about [the business]." Her desire to hike cross-country started with knee surgery and a decision that, after a month of healing, she was ready to take a hike. "Back when I was a teenager, I always wanted to hike the country, and I never did it," she said. "I'm 45 years old. If I don't do it now, I never will. And if I'm going to do it, why not do it for a good cause?" McCrea founded Hickey Bottom Barbecue in 2013 with three flavors of the barbecue sauce she'd been making for friends and family for years. "They said that I ought to bottle it," she said. "It went well, so I thought, why not give it a shot? I didn't want to dive into it just because my friends like it." She named her new company after a quiet country road in western Pennsylvania, a place that she says reflects a way of life that includes hard work and doing your best for your family and neighbors, keeping their word and standing behind their agreements. She wants her company to reflect that also, she said. The Hickey Bottom Barbecue sauces are gluten free and made without high fructose corn syrup, colors or preserva- tives. "I've tried to make a better quality product for the consumer," McCrea said. They come from a company that's certi- fied as a women-owned business. They're manufactured in North Carolina and distributed in brick-and-mortar stores on the northern East Coast and nationally through Amazon, retailing at prices ranging from $2.99 to $10. The range includes her Sweet BBQ, Honey BBQ and Hot BBQ sauces as well as a Smokey Hot Sauce and a Grillin' Rub. The three barbecue sauces are pack- aged in 20-ounce PET plastic bottles, while the Grillin' Rub comes in a 6- ounce plastic spice shaker bottle, and the Smokey Hot Sauce is packaged in a 5.25- fluid ounce glass bottle. As for McCrea herself, she was plan- ning to end her cross-country hike by driv- ing back home in the chase van that had been following her along the road with water and baggage and getting back to her routine of running her business from its home base. "I miss my family and friends," she said. "I hope to grow nation- ally. It's a small company, so it takes a lot of time, but hopefully, one day it will be national – brick-and-mortar national." For more information, visit www.hickey bottombbq.com. Pumpkin Spice Honey Cream Spread Pumpkin Spice is the newest seasonal Honey Cream Spread from Bumbleberry Farms. These delectable spreads can be stirred in coffee, spread on toast or pancakes, drizzled over pop- corn or ice cream, spooned into oatmeal or yogurt, glaze poultry, fish or roasted vegetable. More options for your cus- tomers means more movement on your shelves. The company bottles honeys and crafts its honey cream spreads in small batches using whole, natural ingredients primarily found locally. All honey bottled by Bumbleberry Farms is True Source Certified, ensuring that the honey is ethically sourced in a transparent and trace- able manner from known beekeepers to your shop. Bumbleberry Farms is a woman- owned operation located in the foothills of Pennsylvania's Laurel Mountains. For more information, call 814.279.8083 or go to www.bumbleberryfarms.com. New Snacks from IWON Organics IWON Organics is making snacking easy with a grab-and-go collection of snacks that balance carbohydrates, fats and pro- tein ideally in crave-worthy Protein Chips, Protein Stix and Protein Puffs. With flavors including Nacho Cheese, Mesquite BBQ, Sriracha and Sea Salt, these snacks taste like they should only be eaten on a cheat day, but each serving has at least 10 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber with low sugar and about 200 calories. Every IWON Organics snack is made with plant-based protein, and they are organic, gluten free, non- GMO, soy free, kosher and vegan. For more information, visit www.iwon organics.com.