Give the poor a break with this fair cereal bar (Traidcraft Geobars)

Member Name: misterwriter

Product:	Traidcraft Geobars
Date:	16/03/06 (619 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fairly filling bar, moist and juicy, flavoursome, benefits poor producers and growers

Disadvantages: Slightly expensive, relatively low proportion of ingredients are fairtrade

Maybe I was a budgie in my past life but it seems as though I have a primeval instinct to eat cereal bars. Okay, this is partly fuelled by an overall health drive. A few years ago the odd chocolate wafer would be a staple of my lunches. Then I thought: imagine what chemistry experiments are going on inside me with all of those mysterious E numbered flavourings and additives. It's time I gave them up for good. And I have, more or less.

My taste for cereal bars has led me to try out various supermarket's brands (which I have found to be by and large disappointing gungey concoctions), You Are What You Eat bars (sickly sweet) and Tracker bars (nice and crunchy but I recently discovered full of hydrogenated fat.) More on that deadly fat later.


WHAT ARE TRAIDCRAFT GEOBARS - FAIR TRADE CEREAL BARS?
These cereal bars are labelled Fair Trade which 'guarantees a better deal for Third World producers' and are available in 'Chocolate and Raisin', 'Cranberry and Raisin' and 'Raisin and Apricot' flavours in packs of 6 x 35g bars.


WHAT MADE ME BUY THEM?
That craft old trick - the buy 1 get 1 free deal in Waitrose pulled me in to give them a go. With a quick glance at the ingredients I thought they seemed pretty natural and good. I hate to admit it but the fact they are fair trade didn't sway my purchasing decision. It was more a bonus.


WHAT DID THE PACKAGING TELL ME?
The packs are easy to spot and distinguish. Red for Cranberry and Raisin, orange for Raisin and Apricot and brown for Chocolate and Raisin.

On the front they are stamped with the Fairtrade logo and 'Fine Foods and Fairly Traded' and the strapline 'The energy to make the difference'. What does this mean? Presumably, cereal bars (being full of oats) give you energy and that the 'make a difference' bit is about how they help the growers/producers.

The bars are made by Traidcraft in the UK. I've never heard about them before but helpfully enough there are three paragraphs on the reverse of the pack telling me what they do with case studies of farmers they've helped.

Set up in 1979, Traidcraft give poor producers around the world a chance to get out of poverty by trading with them directly, providing training and information and by influencing policy makers to help the poor get their fair share of world trade. Traidcraft uses fairly traded ingredients from Chile, Ghana, Malawi, Pakistan, Paraguay and South Africa. Apparently they also make Fruit and Nut Muesli and have a catalogue of gifts, accessories, cards etc. You can join the Traidcraft Geoactive team and visit their website to find out about outdoor events and activities at www.traidcraft.co.uk.

My only question, okay it maybe naïve is: as we live in a civilised society shouldn't all products be fairly traded? Or is it like free range? If you care about the welfare of chickens you go for free range over so-called barn fresh eggs.

I didn't read all about Traidcraft before buying the pack (well you don't do you when your busy filling your trolley?) but now knowing a bit more about how Fairtrade benefits people around the world I think it is a very worthy cause.

We often hear about supermarkets making mega profits at the expense of poor growers and producers struggling to earn a keep (as well as the workers) at the bottom of the pile. If the public demand it, it could be a revolution in consumerism like organic is now.

INGREDIENTS:
Looking at the list of ingredients, oats comes top in the Raisin and Apricot Bar and Glucose syrup and Crisped Rice in the Cranberry and Raisin bar. There are skimmed milk powder, dextrose, honey, barley flakes etc - nothing here that doesn't appear to be natural in origin - apart from sulphur dioxide. The only thing I have some doubt over is the ambiguous 'flavourings' - are these natural or artificial? There is no mention on the packaging laying claim that this product is made from 100% natural ingredients - like some do.

Fair trade ingredients in the Cranberry and Raisin bars make up 24.9% which sounds a bit pitiful. In the Raisin and Apricot bars this increases to 32.7%. These are raisins, honey and sugar. I would have expected oats or rice, which form the largest of its ingredients, being fairtrade but sadly this isn't the case.

For people with certain food intolerances - the bars contain wheat and milk powder, may contain traces of nuts and/or sesame seeds and are suitable for vegetarians.

The packaging makes the point of stating that there's 'no hydrogenated fat'. Why does this matter? Well, the Tonight with Trevor McDonald programme recently alleged that eating this trans-fat can raise blood cholesterol and increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer. Marks and Spencer has removed all hydrogenated fat based products from its stores, so there could be something in it.


TASTE:
Cranberry and Raisin>>

My first impressions are good. The bar looks a generous size and feels fairly substantial in weight. I find that most bars these days seem to be getting smaller and smaller; and with many being made of crisped rice, aren't particularly filling either.

This seems to have quite a good share of cranberries but a bit short on raisins. It feels slightly moist, and when I bite into it soft and ever so slightly chewy. There is no brittleness to it like Tracker bars or standard Jordan bars.

The overriding taste is definitely cranberry - bitter, juicy and tangy (despite being sweetened). Then a sweet aftertaste of honey. A bit too sweet for my liking though. Slightly disappointingly I can't taste the oats - they seem to be there just to provide some texture.


Raisin and Apricot>>

It looks fairly appetising enough with mostly raisins but a few apricot pieces mixed in. The apricots are bright orange - that'll be the sulphur dioxide. Before I take a bite I get a whiff of the apricots - a nice citrus smell. Again, like the other bar it is slightly moist and has the same texture.

I can definitely taste the apricots, slightly flowery fragrancy to them and not too sweet either but a bit on the dry side. However, the raisins add some moistness. The wholesome taste of oats kicks in as well.

Overall no bitterness, some sweetness from the honey but no overpowering sickliness and a texture that is not sticky.

Out of the two flavours, I would say this is my favourite - the apricot is a welcome unusual addition.


FATAND SUGAR FACTS:
Compared with You Are What You Eat bars this is how Geobar stacks up in the fat stakes:

Geobar Cranberry and Raisin (per 100g)
7g (5g- saturates)
You Are What You Eat Cool Cranberry Cereal Bar (per 100g)
5.5g (4.2g -saturates)

and in terms of energy:

Geobar Cranberry and Raisin (per 100g)
1576kJ, 373kcal
You Are What You Eat Cool Cranberry Cereal Bar (per 100g)
1417 KJ, 335kcal

The Geobars don't seem excessively unbalanced in terms of fat or sugar - although I'm not a calorie-counting type of person.


PRICE:
I bought these recently in Waitrose (cereal bar section) with a buy 1 get 1 free deal, normal price - £1.89 for 6 x 35g bars. As a comparison, Jordans Frusli Cranberry & Apple (6x30g) bars come in at £1.55 and You Are What You Eat cereal bars (6 x 25g) also at £1.55 - from Waitrose.

Which I suppose, even taking into account the varying weights, makes Geobars a bit more expensive than its competitors.


TO SUM UP
A fairly substantial and natural tasting cereal bar that's not too sticky or sickly. One of the best, I think, on the market - even though it is slightly pricey. With these bars I feel that Traidcraft play the fairtrade card too much, especially when you consider that fairtrade ingredients make up less than a quarter of the Cranberry and Raisin bar which sounds like a poor effort on their part - but a start, I suppose. On a minor point I would have liked the ingredients to be totally natural.


Please note, the packaging is now different to the one illustrated above.

*Previously published by myself, aka simoncjones at Ciao*

Summary: A fairly tasty, generally natural, cereal bar that makes a small difference to fair trade