Berry Chocolate Decadence Bar: 90 bar case

Farms

• The original Just Fruit Bars were a joint project of the USDA and pear and apple farming families in the Pacific Northwest under the name Gorge Delight almost 20 years ago. They wanted to create a product to use the “culled” fruit in conventional orchards. At the time, up to 50% of conventional orchard harvests were wasted because they were considered too ugly or small or misshapen to sell as whole fruit. Working with the USDA, the farmers created the first fruit bar and sent them out in MREs to the military in bases all over the world. And, though the USDA is no longer involved in the production, those original farming families are part owners of ZEGO.
• Pascha Chocolate sources its chips from Peru and does extensive testing for heavy metals to make sure the product they bring to you is safe to eat based on California’s strict Prop 65 standards. They also donate to 1% For the Planet with every purchase.

Testing

• Why do we test for agricultural chemicals? Our fruit bars are made from conventional fruit as part of a sustainability effort to use culled fruit. Most of our fruit is grown in the Pacific Northwest where farmers typically use fewer chemicals on their crops. But, they do use some, and there is possible drift from surrounding fields and waterways. So we test our ingredients after each harvest for over 400 chemicals. We typically detect small levels of a handful of agricultural chemicals but the levels are very low. If we find a spike in a particular chemical, like we did with raspberries one year, we switch to organic for that ingredient for the season. Seasonal changes to organic are not reflected on our packaging. We also test for glyphosate, and to date, all tests have shown no measurable amounts of that chemical.
• We believe it is important to offer better conventional products in the marketplace. Organic certification is expensive for farmers and for many it is unattainable due to finance and other concerns. Only 4% of farmland in the U.S. is certified organic. Yet, many conventional farmers work hard to reduce their use of commercial pesticides and rely more on regenerative farming practices. If brands start buying ingredients based on how clean they are, not just the 0-1 structure of organic certification, farmers will be compensated for making steps toward cleaner growing and more farmers will be encouraged and able to grow cleaner crops. Organic certification is valuable and important, but we also need to expand our compensation system for food so it rewards farmers for making changes that result in better, cleaner food for us, their workers, and our planet, even if they are not certified organic.
• Why do we test for heavy metals in chocolate? Chocolate has a history of higher than natural heavy metal levels caused by man’s activity like mining and battery disposal that can create toxic run off. We work with Pascha Chocolate because they are very careful about heavy metals and test their chocolate frequently.
• Scan the QR code on any package to see the purity test results for your bar and the list of the 400 chemicals we test for or see the results in our Food Safety section on our website.
• See Test Results for Just Fruit Bars.

Allergens

FACILITY

ZEGO products are made in facilities FREE FROM gluten & top allergens (no peanuts, no tree nuts, no soy, no dairy, no egg, no wheat, no fish/shellfish, no lupin, no sesame, no mustard, no sulfites).

CORN

The facility makes products with corn-based ingredients.