Real Food for the Trails

When we travel, we like to eat local. And when we’re exploring Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, we bring Kate’s Real Food bars in our daypacks and in the car for snacking.

Filled with organic honey, non-GMO ingredients, certified gluten-free oats, and organic dried fruits, Kate’s Real Food bars got their start just west of Grand Teton National Park. The Tram Bar, referencing Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s iconic aerial tram, contains peanut butter, apricots and creamy milk chocolate while the Handle Bar has delicious dark chocolate, dried cherries and almonds in it. For tropical fruit lovers, the Tiki Bar, made with mango and coconut, hits the spot.

It was the Tram Bar that jump-started Kate Schade into the bar business. A transplant from upstate New York, Schade moved to Jackson to ski 20 years ago. When she looked for food she could put in her pocket and eat while out skiing runs, there wasn’t much available that was healthy and could sustain her for the whole day. She started making what would become the Tram Bar in her basement, mixing together peanut butter, oats, Fair Trade chocolate and dried fruit. Before long, she was doubling and tripling her recipes as her skiing partners asked for more bars. In 2010, she launched her company and co-owns it today with CEO Bruce Thaler.

You can find Kate’s Real Food bars across the country in grocery stores, REI, locally owned gear shops, airports—even in the Grand Teton National Park visitor’s center and several other National Parks. While the original production facility remains in Victor, Idaho, Schade and Thaler are in the process of opening up a co-packing facility in Bedford, Penn., to expand the number of bars they produce from 1 million to 12 million per year to meet the ever-growing demand for delicious and nutritious pocket-sized adventure fuel.

In some ways, what makes the bars so great tasting is what’s not in them. There are no fillers, no binders and no additives that have such long, convoluted names you can’t even pronounce them. In a world where protein-infused bars with strange-sounding ingredients have taken over snack shelves, Kate’s Real Food stands out. You’re eating something that tastes great, is organic and healthy for you.

And for those who want bites rather than bars, Kate’s makes resealable bags with smaller, snackable portions. Choose between peanut butter, hemp and flax bites, peanut butter and dark chocolate bites or dark chocolate, dried cherry and almond bites.

“If you look at our labels, each bar has six to eight ingredients that you will recognize,” says Christine Mock, Teton Sales Manager for Kate’s Real Food. “And the taste speaks for itself.”

For more information:
katesrealfood.com