Disclaimer - The Recipe Resource were sent five Frank Bars for the purpose of an independent review. The views expressed are entirely my own - or rather those of my fussy, hard to please taste-testers!
About the Frank Food Company"FRANK bars are a deliciously indulgent snack bar made with 100% natural ingredients such as wholegrain oats, dates & dried plums and topped with a delicious dairy free Coconut Cream chocolate. FRANK bars are gluten, nut, & dairy free and are a source of protein, with each bar containing almost 4g of protein per 35g bar. FRANK bars also contain ENERGYSMART®, which is a patented, all-natural combination of carbohydrates from select fruits (apple, grape & pear) plus specially developed natural dextrins from grain which together provide longer-lasting energy.
ENERGYSMART® is a registered trademark of Advanced Ingredients Inc. (USA)"
There are currently five Frank Bars available - Oat and Chocolate, Blueberry and Chocolate, Strawberry and Chocolate, Orange and Chocolate and plain Chocolate. They are more cocoa flavoured than "chocolate" and a wonderful chewy-but-not-too-sticky texture.
We were particularly keen to get hold of these because our current favourite bars contain cashew nuts. Whilst this is wonderful for my children's protein intake on their very restricted diet, they were not allowed in school because for some nut allergic children even cashew nuts are dangerous due to processing methods. Frank bars are nut free so this is not an issue.
Another major issue for us is soya avoidance. Too many foods replace dairy with soya and my twins - particularly our daughter are extremely sensitive to soya. The last accidental ingestion caused two days of considerable acute ill health and a month's recovery time. Frank bars are soya free too!
Frank bars also have a sustained energy release so are ideal to carry in bags for energy dips. For us, this is more than a potential unpleasant energy lull, as we have low blood sugars to manage in one child and these can actively help as part of a balanced diet.
So - what did we think?The twins loved all except (bizarrely?) the plain chocolate bar. Blueberry and Strawberry were a real hit, orange was "good" and the oat one "nice". All round a massive thumbs up!
Our daughter really struggles with foods that are too sticky or chewy so these are fantastic. They are both quite suspicious of new foods, previously associating many foods with pain and discomfort so to spontaneously give a new food a positive endorsement is a huge compliment.
Which were their favourites?As a parent I'm really pleased to have discovered Frank Bars. They certainly tick all my boxes and I'm delighted that Asda now stock them which makes it a little easier to source them - although I notice you can purchase directly from the Frank website. It's not often this little chap embraces a new food so enthusiastically - hats off to Frank!